Police foundation announces leadership

When Dan Bailey and Larry Twill stepped forward earlier this year to volunteer to oversee the transition of the Sarasota Police Foundation to new leadership, they won over a skeptical City Commission, but a substantial amount of work awaited them.

Twill founded the police foundation in 2008, with Bailey serving as the organization’s attorney. The foundation, designed to provide independent financial support for the Sarasota Police Department, was dormant after its inception, with police leaders showing a lack of interest in collaborating with such a group. Still, the foundation remained incorporated, a fact SPD Chief Bernadette DiPino discovered when she began her efforts to start a similar organization.

Some commissioners were critical of DiPino’s connection to the foundation, but when Twill and Bailey volunteered in January to conduct the search for new leadership, the commission unanimously offered its support to the organization.

From there, Twill and Bailey began an extensive community-based search for leadership. They partnered with philanthropy consultant Charlie Ann Syprett and reached out to the Community Foundation of Sarasota County for guidance, attending neighborhood association meetings and conducting surveys to see the type of leadership residents wanted to see in the foundation.

Bailey said that, based on the survey results, a series of qualities were established to guide the search for a new board: integrity, commitment to community collaboration, passion for the group’s mission and thoughtfulness in decision making.

At the July 21 City Commission meeting, Bailey and Twill announced the new leadership of the foundation: President Michael Evanoff, owner of the Evie’s family of businesses; Vice President Dan Kennedy, founder of Sarasota Military Academy; Secretary Rachel Kelly, principal of Booker High School; and treasurer David Haenel, an attorney at the Finebloom & Haenel law firm.

Evanoff said he originally expressed interest in getting involved with the police foundation more than a year ago, and that he was happy to see the organization finally get off the ground. He said he was motivated to join the board because, as a business owner and resident of the city, he had several reasons to help see the police department succeed.

“Any way you can try to help prevent crime and just try to help with the safety of the city, it’s only going to benefit your family and your business in the long run,” Evanoff said.

Although the group is just getting started, Evanoff said the board has already reached out to the Community Foundation to see what funding opportunities might be available. He said that, as the organization begins to look to increase awareness, it’s likely to expand its board.

“The more involved we want to get with the community, we’re going to have to bring in some different people,” Evanoff said.

In addition to offering financial support, Evanoff said he believes the foundation might also be able to act as a way to increase visibility for the police department and better connect the community with officers. He credited Twill and Bailey for their work in laying the groundwork for the foundation.

“It’s been nice to see something come together from the ground floor,” Evanoff said. “Hopefully we can make something happen.”

Although they’ve dedicated the past six months to the foundation, Twill and Bailey are now putting the future of the organization they founded in the hands of others. Still, they were willing to guide the foundation for half of a year to make sure that its future was secured.

“Having invested a tremendous amount of time and effort — not to mention incorporation fees and costs — in creating the organization five years ago, and continuing to nurse it while on life support through the long recession, we simply could not watch it die on the vine,” Bailey said.

Most important, however, was their faith that the organization would help make Sarasota a better place.

“We had an abiding belief that the community really needs what this foundation can provide,” Twill said.

Contact David Conway at [email protected]