The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Foundation is a very different type of nonprofit organization. First established in 1999, it raises money to support Metro’s programs and initiatives, which sounds simple, but much of that programming focuses on community engagement and creating positive relationships between the public and local law enforcement—a complicated mission for any police force in any community.
Brand-new foundation executive director Karen Marben understands those unique challenges and sees the opportunities to build impactful personal relationships. A native of Minnesota who has owned a home in Las Vegas since 2011, she became a full-timer in 2020 after her husband retired from a 38-year law enforcement career. (Their son is a police officer, as well.). Marben accepted a new position at Goodwill of Southern Nevada as chief mission services officer three years ago and then joined Metro’s foundation on August 31.
The LVMPD Foundation’s Back To School Initiative.
Marben tells the Weekly she’s already impressed with Sheriff Kevin McMahill’s commitment to make Las Vegas one of the safest communities across the country and to “inject humanity” into the department’s work. She’s raising awareness of that work and showcasing new programs like the Hispanic Giving Circle, which is focused on “uplifting Spanish-speaking communities around the Valley, and making sure philanthropic supporters can designate funds to that giving circle and get resources to the community,” she said. It was launched during last month’s Mexican Independence Day celebrations and incorporates several initiatives including providing school supplies to students in need, offering mentorship through athletics with the Bolden Lions Futbol Club for Boys & Girls, and continuing to strengthen the Hispanic Citizens Police Academy.
What lessons did you learn about the philanthropic community and Las Vegas in general during your time at Goodwill? Even before I took the role with Goodwill, I really researched what was going on in workforce development here, and became actively involved in how to best serve people in marginalized neighborhoods, and how to leverage the dignity of work to do so. I think what we see too often is the approach of train and pray, where we’re spending millions of dollars to give program participants access to training, but too often those participants are not finding success while employers are scrambling to find talent. So we started building out programs at Goodwill focused on efficacy and achieving better outcomes, and getting participants into in-demand careers with family-sustaining wages with local employers. One of the thing I was most proud of at Goodwill was how we created training sprints, which have received national recognition in Goodwill networks around the country, and all of that is to say that those strong results are one of the biggest takeaways I can apply at the police department foundation, aligning with the sheriff’s priorities and the leadership team so we are creating impactful programs and achieving sustainable outcomes.
What do you think people don’t understand about the LVMPD Foundation?Most people aren’t aware it’s a 501c3 nonprofit organization. The role we play essentially is raising funds and providing programming that supports the department and builds trust between LVMPD and the local community, and it’s quite varied. Last month, through the Back to School Initiative, we provided backpacks stuffed full of school supplies, and they are divided up to different command centers and distributed by officers directly to school children in the neighborhoods they serve. The officers and families already knew each other. We provide funding support for LEEAP, the Law Enforcement Empowerment and Athletic Program, which leverages sporting experiences and leadership training to marginalized youth. That’s one of the opportunities we are [creating] to interact with police officers as humans.
What do you see as the greatest challenges to the growth and success of the foundation? If you look at the last three or four years, it’s been a very challenging time for law enforcement, and we see that in the huge number of vacancies and reduced staffing levels that impacts the safety of our community. The safety of a community is of paramount importance. Sheriff McMahill’s vision and his expectation for officers is to make sure they’re treating every individual they encounter as humans first and foremost, and we want to have enough staff where officers can be much more proactive than reactive. If we don’t have safe communities, it’s near impossible to get people the additional assistance marginalized neighborhoods need to thrive. And we need to make sure, since Southern Nevada is such a destination of choice, that people know they can come here from around the world and feel safe. The foundation works to make sure we can obtain the funding necessary to support the difficult work our law enforcement heroes do every day.
Las Vegas is a very generous community, but it doesn’t necessarily have the established generational donors you might find in older, more developed cities. Does that place certain restrictions on your fundraising, and do you feel there’s potential to expand and improve the donor community here? I don’t see it as a restriction, but it’s different for sure. Maybe it’s not as mature as the philanthropic orientation of older or larger cities, but I have strong optimism about our growing list of generational donors in the greater Las Vegas area. We see brand-new family and corporate foundations founded each year and they tend to focus on the most pressing needs in our community. Most have specific pillars for their philanthropic focus, and many times that includes the safety of our community. Maybe 15 years ago, it was almost rare to meet someone who said they were a Las Vegas native. Now we are seeing many second, third, fourth generation Las Vegans serving as community leaders and making impactful contributions in leading different organizations and foundations, and in philanthropic giving. I’m really proud of the initiatives of the LVMPD Foundation and how they have a strong and wide appeal to a vast array of donors, and I think it will be organizations like this foundation that will help philanthropy mature and become more impactful for this great community.
For more information, visit lvmpdfoundation.org.
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