Last year's gala dinner honoring Robert Wallerstein on his retirement was punctuated by the surprise announcement of an unprecedented $1 million gift to support psychoanalytic research. Donor Marshall Greene established the Robert S. Wallerstein Fellowship for Psychoanalytic Research. The fellowship is a lifetime award, designed to provide $50,000 to $100,000 per year to support the research of the chosen fellow. Enrico Jones is the first recipient of the fellowship.
Greene used a “donor-directed restricted fund model” to accomplish his philanthropic intent. “I wanted to make sure the money I was donating went to what I personally wanted it to,” said Greene. He used the San Francisco Foundation as a supporting foundation to manage the investment.
It was important to keep the management of the fund simple. “I hate red tape and bureaucracy,” Greene said. There are no grant applications. One researcher at a time is chosen by a self-sustaining committee of three (the members choose their own successors).
As the principal in the fund grows and additional monies become available annually, a second fellowship will be added in Sylvia Brody's name [see below]. The second fellowship will support a researcher in psychoanalysis and children, the area of Brody's lifelong interest.
What first sparked Greene's plan was his desire to support the research of his friend Enrico Jones. Jones, a professor of psychology at Berkeley, has developed important empirical research methods using recorded and transcribed tapes of sessions. Greene acknowledges that he is not an empirical researcher himself, but having been trained originally at Menninger's, he greatly appreciates the need for empirical studies. His wish to support Jones' research dovetailed nicely with the opportunity to honor Greenes friend Bob Wallerstein, whom Greene calls “a wonderful person — a mensch in every sense.”
Greene hopes his donor-directed restricted fund will serve as a model for other analysts who may wish to support specific projects to advance psychoanalysis as a field in some manner other than the traditional donations to their institutes, societies, or foundations. According to Greene, “Whatever the specific goal, the donor-directed restricted fund model provides a mechanism for the donor to be certain that the funds will be used precisely as he/she desires.”
Greene contends that for as little as $100,000, restricted funds can be set up to support the specific goals of a donor. Sylvia Brody's JAPA paper fund is one such example. A donor might be interested in establishing an annual retreat for science journalists in psychoanalysis; another might want to support scholarships for academics who wish to be analyzed.
This kind of philanthropic model has rarely been used in psychoanalysis. One notable exception is the Lucy Daniels Foundation in North Carolina, where Lucy Daniels has directed the use of her philanthropic gifts to support her interests in child treatment and the arts.
Anyone interested in learning more about this model of donating to psychoanalysis is encouraged to write Marshall Greene at 215 N. San Mateo Dr., #4, San Mateo, CA 94401, or e-mail him at .