Hardship Fund
The Hardship Fund’s purpose is to assist members of the Colorado State Patrol who find themselves in a financial situation beyond their control and are in need of assistance to access necessities. If you are a Colorado State Patrol member and find yourself in need of this assistance, please review the Hardship Fund Guidelines to ensure your eligibility and then complete the application below for consideration. Please direct questions to John Anderson at John@cspff.net.
The Hardship Fund was created to support requests which identify, in specific detail, unexpected events that impact an individual's or family's ability to financially cope with an unexpected event - causing a short-term, or long-term interruption in the requestor's ability to access necessities. Necessities include, but are not limited to: food, medicine, healthcare, medical devices, housing, utilities, insurance, transportation, clothing, childcare and other goods and services that support basic safety, health and wellbeing of an individual or family. Hardship funding is not intended to relieve financial discomfort but rather support an actual financial imposition on acquiring necessities because resources are either inadequate or unavailable.
For applicants seeking support because of medical expenses, specific detail is necessary identifying how your out-of-pocket health insurance deductible and other medical costs are currently impacting your ability to access necessities. The Hardship Fund cannot simply cover your deductible to make you whole. Instead, the Hardship Fund can provide support for you to access specific necessities, those that you might no longer be able to access because of your medical expenses. Please identify your out-of-pocket deductible and any uncovered medical expenses with their individual and total out-of-pocket amount. Please also identify the specific necessities that you are not now able to access, their individual costs and the total requested amount of support you are seeking to obtain the necessities. This information is critical for your application's success.
All Hardship Fund requests must clearly convey a Demonstrated Need. A requestor does not have to be totally destitute to be needy. Requestors must simply and clearly identify they are lacking the resources to meet necessities due to an unexpected event. Hardship Fund requests that maintain a standard of living at a level satisfactory to an individual, rather than at a level to satisfy basic needs, are unlikely to be supported by the Foundation.
The above financial conditions and disclosures are necessary to meet the Internal Revenue Service’s requirement under Section 102, K. DISASTER RELIEF AND EMERGENCY HARDSHIP PROGRAMS, so any financial support the Foundation might provide can likely be treated as a tax-exempt gift and excluded from “income” on your federal tax filing.
Always consult a tax professional for the proper treatment of any funding you might receive from the Foundation under section 102 of the Internal Revenue Service Code.
Please review the Hardship Fund Guidelines for retired members here.
Please review the Hardship Fund Guidelines for active members here.
If you have received Hardship assistance in the past, please consider filling out this survey!