Founded in San Francisco in November 1991, the Assyrian Aid Society of America (AASA) is a 501(c)(3) charitable organization as designated by the United States Internal Revenue Service. AAS-A is a California nonprofit corporation in good standing.
AASA is governed by a Board of Directors. All Directors are volunteers and receive no salary.
The AASA national office is located in Berkeley, California, with chapters in Chicago, Los Angeles, California’s Central Valley (Modesto-Turlock) and Santa Clara Valley (San Jose), Arizona, Michigan, and Washington, D.C..
Supported primarily by individual donations, AASA is a volunteer organization with only one paid administrative employee.
In FY2022, 93 cents of every dollar donated to AASA went directly to AASA humanitarian projects.
The organization’s annual IRS tax filings since 1991 can be found here.
The Assyrian Aid Society of America is a charitable 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to helping Assyrians in need, promoting Assyrian culture and heritage, building a structure capable of responding to unexpected crises that require immediate mobilization, and focusing American and international attention on the needs and humanitarian concerns of the Assyrian people, particularly in the ancestral homeland of Assyria.
Working in collaboration with sister organization Assyrian Aid Society-Iraq, AAS-A has for a quarter-century vigorously pursued its Mission Statement by funding refugee relief programs, reconstruction projects, Â irrigation and electrification projects, the Assyrian school system from pre-school through high school for nearly three decades, and medical projects that include free and at-cost medical clinics and pharmacies.
Education and the Assyrian schools in north Iraq are a priority. Over 2600 students in 27 schools are being taught all subjects in Assyrian and using textbooks translated into Assyrian and published by the Assyrian Aid Society. In addition, AAS-Iraq has purchased buses and employs drivers to transport students who otherwise could not attend school from their remote villages.
Although independent from and not formally associated with AAS-A, formal Assyrian Aid Society organizations are also at work in Australia, Canada, Great Britain, and Sweden.
The Assyrian Aid Society – Iraq (AAS-Iraq) was officially established in the spring of 1991, formed from a number of the pre-war refugee relief organization. AAS-Iraq cooperated with other international and local organizations as well.
The humanitarian programs of AAS-Iraq quickly expanded to include the distribution of the aid, food, and medicine, plus sending mobile medical clinics to the most remote villages. Village rehabilitation programs included providing agricultural tools and utilities that would provide income and independence, thus helping to maintain an Assyrian population in the Homeland.
As a principal goal AAS-I dedicated itself to instituting the teaching of Assyrian children in the Assyrian language. This plan required action at every level of the teaching process; specifically, providing the needed Assyrian textbooks, the transportation of the students, the salaries of the lecturers, the costs of building and maintaining the dormitories, and more.
The AAS-Iraq Board of Directors consists of 17 members nominated and approved by a designated nominating committee. The Executive Committee, a sub-set of the full Board of Directors, administers the Society on a daily basis and conducts regular meetings to make decisions on various activities of the organization.
The full Board of Directors convenes once each year to set policies, review annual reports, and evaluate new projects.
AAS-Iraq was granted Special Consultative Status by the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations in 2011.
In February 2016 Assyrian Aid Society-Iraq was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.