Team Dean Charities, established in 2001, is a non-profit 501 c3 certified , volunteer organization that raises additional financial aid for local grassroots, Boston area agencies focusing on Victims of Violence including domestic violence, sexual assault and child abuse. Team Dean raises the additional funding through the annual ‘Fore’ Victims of Violence Charity Golf Tournament and Raffle. Last years event provided over $11.000 in support for three local agencies. It is hard to believe that in our short time we have been able to donate over $34,000 to Boston agencies fighting violence in our communities.

The premise of Team Dean is quite simple; a small group of individuals with the common goal of raising money to aid the fight in ending violence in our community.

How We Got Started
Here's the story. The genesis of Team Dean Charities came one night during a fund raising event where a rather engaging woman was discussing her fund-raising activities. She explained that her agency was running short of budget in 2001 by approximately $500. And precisely the impact of this shortfall meant that she would not be able to supply 'pagers' to her entire staff of volunteer hotline counselors. She would need to come up with a complex scheme to exchange the pagers between the advocates to provide a virtual 24hr hotline. If you understand the concept of a 24x7 hotline, pagers are an essential piece of the equation. I didn't quite understand why she was concentrating on this complicated scheme and furthermore I was curious to understand how the lack of 500 dollars could possibly shut down such an important piece of the agency. The answers made me cringe with disbelief.

For many small agencies that provide domestic violence support for targeted, specific ethnic and minority groups, the short fall represented 25% of the annual technology budget. I was simultaneously amazed and appalled at the number. A short fall in the budget would essentially cause havoc to this crucial function in the agency. This got to me thinking of ways I could help in a greater way. I began thinking about how one could effectively raise money for the numerous agencies that faced similar financial struggles. So after many iterations, Team Dean Charities was started. It is my way of giving back.

- Dean Fairchild, Founder