Read our 2024 End of Year Support Letter below:
Dear Friends,
Greetings from the Pierce Family and all of us at Family Protection Ministries. We pray that you and your family are well and enjoying the approaching Christmas season! Let us fix our eyes upon the Lord Jesus Christ, God with us in the flesh!
“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” John 1:14
We are so thankful for the opportunity to continue serving the Lord through serving you as we fight to protect your homeschooling and parental freedoms.
Ministry Update
This year we sorrowfully announce the loss of a long time member of the FPM family. Tim Smith, our founding board chairman, went home to be with the Lord in October. He faithfully served FPM as a board member and as a close advisor to our founder, Roy Hanson, for many years and he played a vital role in ensuring our nonprofit’s financial and legal affairs were in order. Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints. Psalm 116:15
Here in the office, we are experiencing quite the transition amidst our staff. Weddings bells abound as this year both our legislative aide and bookkeeper got married and left FPM as they transition to new stages of life. And while we rejoice with the news of another marriage coming this Spring, we will be losing another wonderful staff member. Each of these leaves enormous empty shoes, and yet we trust that God has something in mind to fill each need.
Storage and Consolidation: For many years we have both rented a storage unit and used the Pierce family’s house to store files, event supplies, books, and handouts. We have finally been able to move most of this to one condensed storage space below our office making life easier, especially for the Pierce family.
This has also freed up a little more working space helping us to expand our internship program, with more room for interns physically in the office. Please continue to pray that the internship program will continue to be an opportunity for discipleship for the young people who come though, as well as lead us to generate interest in longer term staff positions.
Significant 2024 Legislation
This year on the legislative battlefront we were faced with several new bills.
AB 1864
Your House On A Map:
One of our responsibilities here at FPM is to work with the state legislators to change the wording of well-intentioned bills in order to protect the rights of homeschooling families and parental rights. AB 1864 was meant to protect people from being exposed to harmful chemicals while at school campuses. A noble cause indeed. However, the bill also had major privacy and safety concerns for homeschool families in California.
When AB 1864 was first introduced, the pesticide regulations in the bill would have applied to all homes where private homeschoolers lived. As a result every homeschool family’s home address would have been published on the website of the California Department of Pesticide Regulation.
We are grateful to report that after Nathan submitted an amendment request to the author, the bill was amended to exclude schools conducted in homes and now only applies to private schools with six or more children that do not operate out of homes.
We will continue to work directly with the California Department of Education through the regulation process to ensure that the currently existing online directory will be used for the implementation of this bill instead of a new system for private school addresses. This is good especially since the pesticide protections for California residences are already better than for schools!
AB 1955
Parents Don’t Have The Right To Know:
Another significant bill we worked to fight was the infamous AB 1955. On May 22nd, this bill was gutted-and-amended in the Senate becoming “Support Academic Futures and Educators for Today’s Youth Act.” We immediately began taking action–marking this bill as urgent and writing opposition letters to deliver to the State Senators before the session voted. Unfortunately, it was quickly pushed through the legislature. On July 15, 2024, while the news was busy covering the assassination attempt of President Trump, Governor Gavin Newsom unashamedly signed AB 1955.
This bill undermines the pillars of freedom (Religious Freedom and Parental Rights) upon which the legal right to enroll children in a private school or homeschool has been established. It removed the right of parents to know and help their children (in public schools) make decisions about gender identity and establishes the state as the authority allowing the school system to influence the child without the knowledge and permission of the parents. This bill will have far reaching effects.
Upcoming Legislative Session
As of this writing, there have already been well over 150 bills introduced to the California legislature for this upcoming year. We expect this number to grow to around three thousand in the next two months. This means our staff members are already hard at work researching and preparing for January when the bills will be read for the first time. Please keep us in your prayers as we gear up for another busy legislative year fighting to protect your parental and homeschooling rights.
In addition to a “normal” legislative session, Governor Newsom announced a special legislative session which convened on December 2nd to provide additional funding to the California DOJ to defend against the traditional conservative values of the incoming Trump Administration. Governor Newsom is determined to “Trump-proof” California, and so we will continue to watch how this could impact you.
Our Financial Need
We have a critical need for increased monthly donations and generous one-time gifts now for our ministry to be able to continue leading the fight for our God-given liberties in 2025!
We are 100% dependent upon God’s providing through home educators like you for our support. We strive to keep our overhead costs to a minimum. We have no grants from foundations. We do not have a large donor base as do other ministries. If this ministry is to continue, it will be because of you and others like you who are willing to sacrifice and invest in maintaining our precious freedoms.
Family Protection Ministries continues to be the only organization attempting to detect and monitor all legislative and legal matters related to private home education and parental rights in California on a full-time, specialized basis. Together with you, as a team, we are all investing in freedom for our children and their children. This is possible only because of support from friends and team members like you. Please tell others about our work and encourage them to support FPM as well, and please continue to pray for us.
Last year we mentioned the cost of our legislative search service at $3.29 per day and our Capitol parking costs of $6.57 per day throughout the year. We are grateful for the support received to cover those costs this year.
This coming year we will have those costs again as well as others including internship stipend payments, cost of living raises for staff, and an increase in rent due to inflation. We also have annual costs of producing our homeschool information packets for legislators that we distribute at Capitol Day and distribute for district visits throughout the state.
One great need is due to a change in the California homeschooling community. Since families don’t attend large homeschooling conferences as much, Nathan is required to travel farther and more frequently throughout the state educating parents and leaders in advocacy training, legal how to’s, and legislative updates. Transportation is an ever growing slice of the FPM budget.
If you’re able to help with any of these needs—whether it’s a monthly donation or a one-time gift—it would make a huge difference. Your support is crucial in helping us continue our work to protect homeschool freedoms. Thank you for considering a commitment today.
Will you please help now with (1) a special year-end contribution; and/or (2) regular monthly contributions to Family Protection Ministries to keep us going in 2025? All contributions are tax deductible. We appreciate your consideration of the needs of this ministry.
To donate, visit: www.fpmca.org/donate
Thank you for being a vital part of this ministry.
Blessings to you and your family! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
From all of us here at Family Protection Ministries,
Nathan B. Pierce
Executive Director
Family Protection Ministries