The American Psychoanalytic Foundation (APF) in its 11th year has completed a dramatic change and, with a unanimous vote of both the APF board and the APsaA Executive Council, became a Committee of the American Psychoanalytic Association in 2005.
Before Dean K. Stein began his position as APsaA executive director, the APF board invited him to do a critical analysis of how well APF was realizing its mission and goals. These included raising funds and awarding grants to promote a better understanding of psychoanalysis and encouraging effective and innovative dissemination of psychoanalytic ideas and services to the public.
After substantive research on APF financial records, goals, and abilities, consulting individually with each member of the board, and immersing himself in APF's past history, Dean Stein suggested that APF become a committee of the APsaA corporation. Stein realized that fundraising and administrative tasks could be done more efficiently by APsaA staff. Thus, the APF Committee could devote itself to making grant awards in service of its mission.
After a year's efforts, APF gifted the Association more than $500,000 and started to think about our new direction.
The new APF Committee plans to take a proactive role in funding proposals. We want to encourage groups and individuals to apply for support for many varied programs and needs. And we want to educate ourselves about what is going on all over the country in psychoanalytic outreach.
At our committee meetings, we are inviting various groups involved in active outreach programs to make short presentations about their work. These are not requests for funding, but are intended to help APF become knowledgeable about what is actually going on in outreach, how it is funded, and how it is received.
We invite and encourage all of you who meet our guidelines to explore what APF can do for you and to apply for APF grants. We anticipate a larger working budget this year, and want your involvement and your financial support through contributions to APsaA. We are your foundation, and we hope that you will think of us as a resource for programs that may not fit with other funding sources.
When considering making a funding request to APF you might ask these questions about your program:
Community Outreach: Does your program broaden the community's knowledge of psychoanalytic ideas as well as provide a valuable service?
National Focus: Will your program develop and contribute to knowledge and service beyond its local community?
Replication: Can the program be a model for other programs at other psychoanalytic institutes, societies, and foundations?
Fundraising: Will this program and APF funding lead to new funding sources for this and other programs?
Creative and Original: Is the program innovative? Does it show promise of findings or services that could be utilized in psychoanalytic fields or other disciplines?
Continuing Education Credit: Will your program give CE credit to other mental health professionals and to other groups?
We have a Web site at . However, proposals to APF should be e-mailed to Dean Stein at . He will let you know if your proposal fulfills the conditions we require for consideration.
We hope to receive your project submission in the near future.
Selma Duckler is acting chair of the American Psychoanalytic Foundation.