Mission

The Signage Foundation, Inc. is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to fulfilling the educational, research and philanthropic purposes of on-premise signage. SFI was established in 2002 as a 501© (3) public foundation through its supporting organizational alignment with the International Sign Association. The Foundation is governed by a board of directors representing the diversity and professional depth within the large community of individuals that believe in the social and economic value of on-premise signage. The Foundation’s initial efforts focused on working diligently to demonstrate a strong commitment to organizational stewardship, systems development and alignment with strategic constituencies. All gifts to the Signage Foundation, Inc. are tax deductible and can be given annually, through endowment gifts or by deferred giving for support in perpetuity.

Vision Statement

The Signage Foundation, Inc. promotes intelligent and productive use of on-premise signage and storefronts that benefits every sector of the U.S. economy. The vision of SFI carries forth the positive momentum brought by research, education and a fundamental consistent mission message about the sign industry. The Foundation seeks to become a sustainable organization that achieves full integration with the academic arena. The Signage Foundation is committed to fully operational systems that will define stewardship in the organization. Signage Foundation, Inc. works with various constituencies to encourage maximally beneficial use of signage including the recognition that the sign becomes a transferable real estate asset that must be protected. The vision includes alignments that will help develop academic curriculum to train planners.

Core Values

Unconditional respect for the positive societal value of signage
Respect for sign users
Respect for democracy and all forms of free speech: political, commercial and public/private
Communication of a consistent message and the predictability the consistency brings
Rights of individuals and business
Value of entrepreneurial development especially within the small business arena
Value of job creation and retention
Value of research and knowledge base for the industry developed at the highest intellectual level available to the industry with and completed with appropriate peer review
Appreciation for the individual talents within the sign industry, its users, and its manufacturers/suppliers

SIGNS ARE SPEECH

In 1945 the Supreme Court evaluated commercial speech and stated:

“… the indispensable democratic freedoms secured by the First Amendment … gives these liberties a sanctity and a sanction not permitting dubious intrusions. And it is the character of the right, not of the limitation, which determines what standard governs the choice.

For these reasons any attempt to restrict those liberties must be justified by clear public interest, threatened not doubtfully or remotely, but by clear and present danger. The rational connection between the remedy provided and the evil to be curbed, which in other contexts might support legislation against attack on due process grounds, will not suffice. These rights rest on firmer foundation. ... Only the gravest abuses, endangering paramount interests, give occasion for permissible limitation.

This conjunction of liberties is not peculiar to religious activity and institutions alone. The First Amendment gives freedom of mind the same security as freedom of conscience.

Great secular causes, with small ones, are guarded. …. And the rights of free speech and a free press are not confined to any field of human interest.”

United States Supreme Court, Thomas v. Collins, 323 U.S. 516 (1945)