By Ronald C. Ruecker, Director of Public Safety, Sherwood, Oregon; Chair, IACP Foundation; and Immediate Past President, IACP

ince its inception, the IACP Foundation has been fortunate to establish many public-private partnerships that have resulted in great benefits for the IACP membership and the law enforcement profession as a whole. One outstanding example of this investment in professional policing by a corporate partner is the new Law Enforcement Business Fellowship, currently under development in collaboration with Target.

Partnership and Fellowship

Target has long been a supporter of both the IACP and the foundation, and, after seeing the success and value of some of the other professional development scholarships that the foundation has produced with such partners as Grantham University and the Northwestern University Center for Public Safety, Target approached the foundation board with an extraordinary offer.

Like many companies, Target has its own internal training system that helps foster a common language among team members and encourages excellence and professionalism in a wide variety of topics such as human resources, leadership, and finance. Brad Brekke, vice president of assets protection at Target and IACP Foundation board member, suggested that there might be a natural marriage of resources between Target’s training team and the needs of the law enforcement community—and the seeds of the Law Enforcement Business Fellowship were planted.

Law Enforcement Business Fellowship

In collaboration with team members at Target, and under the auspices and review of the IACP Foundation Board, the Law Enforcement Business Fellowship will be a three-week training program, based on several of Target’s most effective courses but revised and geared toward law enforcement command staff. The fellowship will host four students during the pilot program, planned for June 2009, at Target’s corporate headquarters in Minneapolis, Minnesota. All costs associated with the program, such as compensation for instructors, travel to and from Minneapolis, lodging for three weeks, and most meals, will be covered by a grant from Target through the IACP Foundation.

The curriculum for this pilot program will have undergone review and approval by an educational subcommittee of the IACP Foundation comprising active, sworn law enforcement executives.

The recipients of the four fellowships will be the first to experience and evaluate this new training opportunity and will be exposed to instruction on topics such as the following:

• Crisis management: Reviewing crisis leadership best practices made real by a mock hands-on crisis experience intended to help identify event triggers, execute response efforts with key partners, and complete the recovery process


• Community partnership: Understanding the importance of public-private partnerships, how to structure them effectively, and how they can be leveraged to support any agency and any community


• Innovation: Examining innovative concepts such as the Target Corporate Command Center and Target Forensic Laboratory and learning how to build a business case for acquiring innovative or technology-based solutions


• Human Resources: Extensively studying how to recruit, build, and retain a great team and arming agency leadership with the tools to manage job performance while developing and promoting the team


• 6Sigma: Learning how 6Sigma, a unique problem-solving methodology, can be used in any agency to help increase process efficiency, prioritize issues, control costs, and maximize existing resources

In addition to these rigorous courses, instruction will be presented on additional topics such as media relations, investigations, finance, and information security.

Timeline and Application

The application process for the IACP Foundation/Target Law Enforcement Business Fellowship will begin in February and will be advertised through the IACP’s biweekly e-mail newsletter, the Police Chief, and on the IACP and foundation Web sites. Scholarship recipients will be notified in early April.

Successful candidates will be active, full- or part-time, command-level law enforcement officers, with the full support of their agency executives, who thoroughly and accurately complete the application process and are able to attend and complete the three-week course, currently scheduled for June 6–28, 2009.

The IACP Foundation is grateful to Target and to all of the corporate, educational, and philanthropic partners that advance the cause of professional policing through their contributions to leadership, scholarship, and fellowship. ■

The IACP Foundation is a not-for-profit 501(c)3 organization established to solicit, receive, administer, and expend funds for law enforcement–related charitable and educational purposes. Donations may be tax deductible; please check with your personal tax adviser. The foundation’s federal tax ID number is 54-1576762.

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