By Mary Borovicka, PharmD, BCPP, AAPP Foundation President
Summer has drawn to a close, and you can see and feel that fall is here. The leaves are changing, the air is crisp, and the days are getting shorter. Soon the holidays and the Giving Season will be upon us. The Giving Season, which refers to the last two months of the year, is the time when charitable giving is at its peak. There is a rich history of charitable giving in the U.S. The tax benefit of giving began in 1917 in the U.S. and allows tax filers to deduct qualifying charitable contributions from their U.S. federal taxable income. This benefit has certainly helped to bolster charitable contributions over the years. In fact, the generosity of Americans is seen every year in record-breaking numbers, and in 2023 charitable donations totaled over $557 billion!
I would like to encourage you to begin your plans for charitable giving at the end of the year, and to please consider the AAPP Foundation as a recipient of your generosity. The Foundation strives to utilize the funds that you so generously give to meet its mission “to advance the psychiatric pharmacy profession by supporting research, scholarship, and practitioner development”. Without you, the Foundation is not able to offer important grants and programming that demonstrate the value of psychiatric pharmacists, contributes to leadership development, supports new practitioners, and supports NAMI and other advocacy organizations.
The Foundation supports the following with your support: Defining the Future Grant, Collegiate Chapter Impact Grants, and Student Registration Grants. Defining the Future grants supports student and resident projects that align with the foundation’s mission. College Chapter Impact Grants are for student chapters to receive funding for projects that impact patient care, address mental health disparities, creates awareness of the value of psychiatric pharmacists, increase interest in psychiatric pharmacy, and reduce stigma to mental health and substance use disorders. Lastly, Student Registration Grants support pharmacy students to attend the annual meeting. Students are selected based on the merits of their application and recommendations.
Additionally, the foundation supports speakers at the annual meeting. This year, the foundation supported Dr. Julie Cerel, who spoke on the important topic of Living Through Loss – Navigating Loss by Suicide as a Clinician-Survivor at the annual meeting in Orlando. This was a moving and very well-received presentation.
And finally, your association awarded $247,352 through the Foundation towards the largest project in the history of the organization – the AAPP Outcomes Grant Award. The project is titled Psychiatric pharmacist management of cardiometabolic risk for adults with serious mental illness in outpatient safety-net mental health clinics in San Francisco. We are looking forward to the results of this study, which is being conducted by Drs. Esti Iturralde, Anne Rosenthal, and Hannah Van Ochten. This significant research project could only be done with membership support.
As we move into the latter months of 2024, please consider contributing to the AAPP Foundation to support the advancement of the psychiatric pharmacy profession. This year’s campaign goal is $75,000 and I am certain we can achieve this goal! Current donations are $31,763, so we still have a way to go! Thank you in advance for your gift.
Mary Borovicka, PharmD, BCPP
President, AAPP Foundation Board of Directors