SSH is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, which means membership dues and event revenue fund the operations of the Society — the staff, the systems, the events, and the programs that serve members day to day.
They do not, and should not, fund everything.
There are things the simulation field needs that fall outside the boundaries of what a professional society's operating budget is designed to cover.
Scholarships for professionals who cannot otherwise attend IMSH. Funding for early career researchers who need support to do the work that will move the field forward. Recognition programs that surface innovation at the boundary of what simulation currently knows how to do. Endowed lectures that bring perspectives to the community that would not otherwise reach it.
The SSH Fund exists to fund those things. And it is built on a specific principle: the members and supporters of SSH decide what the Fund supports, not the leadership or the staff. That member-directed model is what distinguishes the Fund from a discretionary endowment. It is a collective investment by the community in the things the community has decided matter most.
In its first four years, the SSH Fund has raised nearly $250,000. That is a meaningful start.
It has funded scholarships that sent professionals to IMSH who could not have gone otherwise. It has funded research that is producing findings the field will build on. It has funded an innovation competition that has surfaced ideas that have since influenced practice.
None of that would have happened without donors who decided this community was worth investing in. I am proud of what the SSH Fund has accomplished in a short time. I am more interested in what it can accomplish with broader support.
To learn more about the SSH Fund or to make a contribution, visit ssih.org/ssh-fund.
Sincerely,
Andrew Spain, PhD, MA, EMT-P
SSH Associate Executive Director