The Frontline Fund exists on one idea: relief infrastructure has to be built before the crisis, not assembled during it. Not another fund waiting for the next shutdown to start scrambling — infrastructure that's already in place, tested, and ready the moment TSA officers and federal workers need it.
Three shutdowns in one fiscal year. Officers selling plasma, handing in badges they earned, forfeiting back-pay rights they didn't even know they had. The people who keep American aviation safe were left to improvise their own survival — one payday loan and one missed rent payment at a time.
The resource navigation problem is real, and it's solvable. There is help out there — 0% credit lines, food assistance, forbearance, legal aid — but it's scattered across dozens of programs, buried in fine print, and impossible to sort through while you're standing in a security line worrying about your next paycheck. Workers deserve a partner who shows up before being asked, not another form to fill out once the emergency has already started.
Darin Carter's path to The Frontline Fund started in cybersecurity. A 2014 Penn State graduate and Schreyer Honors Scholar with a degree in Security and Risk Analysis, he built his career on a simple principle: critical systems have to work under pressure, or they don't work at all.
That principle followed him into financial technology. At Coinbase, Darin served as program advisor for Future First New York — a first-of-its-kind pilot that combined a lump-sum payment with recurring payments over six months to help 160 underserved young adults in the South Bronx and East Harlem invest in their futures while meeting basic needs. These were New Yorkers who'd been locked out of traditional banking by fees, credit requirements, and years of institutional distrust. GiveDirectly administered the program; Darin helped shape its design. It proved the idea The Frontline Fund is built on: responsive impact infrastructure, designed before the crisis and ready from day one — not assembled once the emergency has already started.
Darin has also worked directly with lawmakers to help shape policy on emerging financial technology — experience he now brings to the Fund's own legislative outreach. And he's invested personally in opening doors for others: as a Penn State undergrad, Darin relied on the Bunton-Waller Scholarship and Schreyer Honors College support to make his own education possible. Years later, he endowed the Darin Sinclair Carter–Igwé Family Matching Scholarship — a $100,000 fund, including a 1:1 match — to support the next generation of IST undergraduates, with preference to Schreyer Scholars.
The Frontline Fund is that same instinct, applied to a new population: build the infrastructure before the crisis, so it's ready the moment TSA officers and federal workers need it.
We're building three things, each designed to be in place and tested before the next lapse — not stood up in a panic after it starts:
The Frontline Fund is an independent initiative. We are not affiliated with, sponsored by, or officially endorsed by AFGE, AFGE TSA Council 100, TSA, or any government entity. A formal relationship with Council 100 is actively in progress — but it isn't in place yet, and we won't imply otherwise. Everything here is built to serve TSA officers and their union, with or without a formal tie. The moment a partnership is official, we'll say so plainly.
Union leaders, credit union partners, and press: reach us directly at hello@thefrontlinefund.org. We build around your members' reality — tell us what they actually needed, and what didn't work.