Spokeo Community Grant Program Highlight: Family Services of North Alabama

Did you know that Spokeo has a Community Grants program dedicated to helping non-profit organizations achieve their goals through the use of people data? We believe that data is an essential part of life, and how you use it is just as important. Family Services of North Alabama (FSNA) is one organization that uses the power of data to help others.

Family Services of North Alabama, or FSNA, seeks to teach, empower, advocate, and liberate through education, resource networking, and providing advocacy for victims of sexual assault. The organization has been a member of our Community Grant program for almost three and a half years and they have used Spokeo to help teach internet safety to students, parents, teachers and professionals, as well as help victims of sexual assault. Here are a few stories that Alecia Caudill, Internet Safety Program Director at FSNA, shared with us:

• During one of Alecia’s internet safety classes, she noticed that one teacher had become upset at the information that Alecia was teaching the children. Feeling that something was off about the situation, Alecia mentioned the experience to her boss. After discussing, they felt that it was in the best interest of the students for Alecia to report the incident. She didn’t know much about the teacher, except for his name, so she used Spokeo to search for his contact information to include in the report. An investigation was started, and the man was arrested and added to the registered sex offender list.

• A young woman that was sexually assaulted went to FSNA for assistance. She had met the man who assaulted her through a friend of a friend, and she only knew his first name. Alecia helped the girl search through the friend’s Facebook until they found the man’s profile. They then performed a name search on Spokeo and found the man’s address. They turned that information over to the police, which helped the authorities solve the case. The man was arrested for his crime, and justice was served. This is one of many situations where FSNA were able to help sexual assault victims identify their abuser. In fact, Alecia and FSNA work hand-in-hand with their local police departments when the police need assistance with obtaining more details such as a social media profile on a suspect.

• Not only has Alecia used Spokeo professionally, but she’s also used Spokeo personally to help reunite a young boy with his father. Alecia’s daughter had asked her to look up the name of a man. After quickly finding the man’s contact information on Spokeo, Alecia asked her daughter why she needed this man’s information. Her daughter explained that her friend had wanted to find his father, so she decided to help him out by asking Alecia, since she knew that her mother used Spokeo at work. After learning some background history on the situation, Alecia learned that the friend’s mother had tried searching for the father in the past, but never had any luck. However, Alecia found information on Spokeo that helped reunite her daughter’s friend and his father.

We’re so happy to hear of the ways that FSNA has used Spokeo to help people in need. In addition to teaching internet safety and providing support to sexual assault victims, FSNA also provides other programs to help their communities, such as a parenthood program, co-parenting classes, youth suicide prevention, and community awareness surrounding child abuse and dating violence. If you’re interested in helping Family Services of North Alabama, or are interested in learning more about them, you can do so here. If you’d like to watch a recent talk with FSNA and our CEO, Harrison Tang, you can watch it below:

Lastly, if you’re a 501(c)3 non-profit organization looking for help, or know of one that could use our Spokeo service to help them achieve their goals, please send an email to our Community Grants team at grants@spokeo.com. We’d love to have you join our community!