Do You Know Someone In Need? See Jim

Jim Thompson has a checkbook and a pen in hand and he’s looking to give money away.

But not to just anybody.

Jim is president of the Broadcasters Foundation of America and it is among his jobs to identify broadcasters who are in acute need because of illness, accident, other misfortune or simply old age.

They’re the ones who get the checks.

With the help of the foundation’s extremely active board led by Chairman Dan Mason, Jim has been doing an increasingly good job with the check writing.

Last year, he gave away $801,050, up from $678,200 five years earlier.

This year, he wants to boost that to $900,000.

Consider these three recipients of monthly grants:

• A 40-year-old news anchor suffering from coronary artery disease was diagnosed with end-stage renal cancer. He and his wife struggled to pay their bills and medical expenses. With no investments or savings left, and no family or children to rely on, their only source of income was their Social Security benefits.

• A news photographer sustained severe injuries in a car accident that left him paralyzed below the shoulders and on a ventilator. His wife left her job to help him with his around-the-clock care and the workman’s compensation he receives isn’t enough to sustain the family.

• Because of complications from diabetes, a news photographer had his leg amputated below his knee. With a long recovery ahead and medical expenses piling up, he could no longer fully support his wife and children on his own.

Take a minute. Is there somebody you know in the business who sounds like the people in the three stories I just recounted?

If you do, contact Jim in this office in New York (212-373-8250 or [email protected]) and he’ll let you know how to proceed. Or, you can encourage the candidate for relief to fill out this online form on the foundation’s website. Or, if appropriate, do it for him or her.

The foundation will review the application and, if its criteria are met, Jim will start sending out those checks every month.

The grants range anywhere from $500 to $1,700 per month with an average of $1,200.

That may not sound like much to those of you who are thriving at the peaks of your careers, but it’s an absolute blessing to the recipients who are down on their luck.

The foundation also makes one-time emergency grants to victims of natural disasters.

In 2012, in the wake of Superstorm Sandy, Jim sent $1,000 checks to 15 broadcasters who suffered losses.

Last year, he opened his checkbook wide, sending $1,000 checks to 90 broadcasters who were affected by the flooding around Joplin, La.

The foundation makes a point of getting the emergency checks out as fast as it can, within a week or so.

The owners and upper management class are generally aware of the foundation because they are constantly being hit up to make donation to it.

But I’m always surprised by how little station-level broadcasters know that the foundation and the good it good do.

So, i’d like to make a special appeal to GMs, news director and other department heads at stations.

When you meet with your staff next week, talk about the foundation and the availability of the money. See if anybody knows anyone who could use the help. Spread the word.

Then, follow through with the potential recipient and the foundation.

You can do a lot of good with little effort.

Trust me, I know Jim well. He loves to write checks.

P.S. If you do lead the foundation to a broadcaster who starts getting a check, you might feel a bit obligated to donate to the foundation. You should. Jim accepts checks as well as write them. And credit cards.

Harry A. Jessell is editor of TVNewsCheck. He can be contacted at 973-701-1067 or here. You can read earlier columns here.