The American Society of Journalists and Authors Charitable Trust, a 501 (c)3 organization, is the educational and charitable arm of ASJA. The Trust has two main initiatives, the Educational Foundation and the Writers Emergency Assistance Fund (WEAF). Both programs help independent writers in different stages of their careers. Donations are tax-deductible and we invite your support.
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Click here for 2016 Audited Financial Statements for fiscal year ended June 30, 2016 showing the work and achievements made possible by our members, supporters, and partners.
SHERRY BECK PAPROCKI, President ASJA Charitable Trust; President ASJA
Sherry Beck Paprocki is an award-winning journalist, author and social media strategist. She is president of R.S. Rock Media, Inc., a content firm that creates niche magazines and websites for publishing companies, nonprofits, small businesses and big personalities. She is also the former national communications manager for the National Inventor Hall of Fame Foundation’s Camp and Club Invention programs. Her books include The Complete Idiot's Guide to Branding Yourself (Alpha, 2009), as well as several juvenile biographies for Chelsea House focused on big personalities including Oprah Winfrey, Ellen DeGeneres, Katie Couric and others.
MILTON TOBY, Vice President ASJA Charitable Trust; Vice President ASJA
Milton Toby is the author of eight nonfiction books and scores of magazine articles about the horse industry. Milt also is an attorney, a frequent presenter on copyright and contract issues, and a past chairman of ASJA’s Contracts & Conflicts Committee.
The Foundation of a Successful Freelance Career
The ASJA Educational Foundation was launched in 2010 and embodies a new approach to our longstanding educational mission. Its mission is to empower independent writers now and into the future, and work to make sure freelance writing remains a viable career. The Foundation's largest event, the annual ASJA Writers Conference, is held each Spring in New York City and has been bringing freelance writers together in the nation's media capital for more than 40 years. The annual conference is supplemented by regional conferences.
Educational Foundation Leadership
MINDA ZETLIN, Program Chair of the Foundation; Board member, ASJA Charitable Trust
As Program Chair for the ASJA Educational Foundation, Minda Zetlin helps oversee all of ASJA's educational events. She is immediate past president of ASJA, as well as a two-time annual conference chair. She's a speaker on leadership topics, author or co-author of six books, most recently The Geek Gap, and writes the daily Laid-Back Leader column at Inc.com, the Inc. magazine website.
JOANNE Y. CLEAVER, Development Chair of the Foundation
Joanne Cleaver has been advocating for lifelong economic and career self-sufficiency since she launched her career as a freelance journalist, in 1981. She has been a member of ASJA since 1994. In 2013, working with a highly talented committee of ASJA members, she conceived and launched Content Connections, the new ASJA conference focused on corporate and content work. Cleaver is a nationally published journalist whose work has appeared in publications from Crain's Chicago Business to Working Mother to Good Housekeeping to Inc. She designed and managed Working Woman magazine's Top 25 Companies for Executive Women, then spun off that methodology to manage industry-specific research that measures and supports the advancement of women. The Career Lattice (McGraw Professional, 2012) is Cleaver's seventh book.
The mission of WEAF is to help established freelance writers who, because of advanced age, illness, disability, a natural disaster, or an extraordinary professional crisis are unable to work. Click here for more information about the Fund and its work.