Restricted and endowment funds from generous donors are vital to ensuring that the Society will continue to fulfill its mission of “promoting useful knowledge.” Through a restricted or endowment gift, you can support areas of the Society that align with your interests. The Society’s endowment has grown steadily over time thanks to generous gifts, sound investments, and careful use of yearly returns.
Endowment and Restricted Gifts
Alexandra Montgomery and Will Fenton, 2016 and 2017 Elizabeth R. Moran Fellows. Alexandra Montgomery worked to uncover the history of Brushwood and Bryn Clovis farms using a newly donated deed collection spanning nearly 300 years of Chester County history. Will Fenton examined hundreds of volumes of diaries across the American Philosophical Society manuscript collections. See the online diary research guide he developed with the APS technology team over the course of his fellowship.
The APS’s endowment, built up over more than two centuries with gifts from Members and Friends, has a history of sound management with steady long-term growth. Investment income from our restricted and unrestricted endowment funds plays a crucial part in our operations.
If you have any questions or wish to establish an endowment fund, please contact Linda Jacobs at 215-440-3434 or [email protected].
Examples of naming opportunities include:
Library funds for the acquisition and processing of books and manuscripts
Research Grant funds in all fields for graduate students and postdoctoral level scholars
Exhibitions
Public outreach programs
Meetings
Principal staff positions
Endowed Research Grants
A. cervicornis transplanted fragments on cement “cookies” attached to a hard substrate at Calabash Forereef. Photo by Kathryn Lesneski, Lewis and Clark Fund for Exploration and Field Research grant recipient (2016).
The APS is one of the preeminent organizations in the nation offering grants and fellowships on a competitive basis for scholarly research. The APS has a long and distinguished tradition of research and exploration, dating back to the founding era. Since 1933, the APS has provided grants and fellowships to more than 16,000 scholars—many of them younger scholars at critical stages in their careers. In the last decade alone, the APS has awarded some 1,500 research grants to early-career scholars at more than 600 colleges and universities.
Donors may endow and name a research grant for a minimum contribution of $50,000 in the programs listed below, or they may establish general endowments for research grants, allowing the APS to apply the funds as needed in programs such as those listed below. Donors will receive annual reports on the recipients of grants supported by the income from their respective endowed funds.
Franklin Grants provide funds in any discipline for research that is often travel-related, usually to museums and libraries abroad. There are few, if any, comparable programs of this scale offering grants that are fully portable (i.e., not tied to a specific research center or discipline). These grants are generally awarded to postdoctoral scholars and typically support the cost of research leading to publication.
Lewis and Clark Grants for Exploration and Field Research were established in 2004 in honor of the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial. (The APS cosponsored Lewis and Clark’s journey, and its Library is home to their journals.) The Lewis and Clark Grants support doctoral students from disciplines with a large dependence on field studies, such as archeology, anthropology, biology, ecology, geography, geology, linguistics, paleontology, and population genetics, but grants will not be restricted to these fields.
Library Resident Research Fellowships provide support for short- and long-term fellowships for scholars from outside the region, enabling them to use the resources of the APS Library on site. Recipients come from all over the world. The Library is internationally recognized for its holdings in early American history and culture; the history of science, medicine, and technology; and Native American anthropology.
Please contact Linda Jacobs at 215-440-3434 or [email protected] for further details.
Annie Westcott Fund for Meetings
Baruch S. Blumberg, Annie Westcott, and Neil Armstrong at the April 2008 APS Meeting
In December 2023, Annie Westcott, Director of Meetings, retired after 34 years of service to the Society. In recognition of Annie’s dedication to the Society, Council established the Annie Westcott Fund for Meetings to bring emerging scholars and researchers to the Meetings. Thanks to the generosity of APS leadership, the Society has raised $42,400 toward our goal of $50,000.
If you would like to make a gift in recognition of Annie’s legacy, please contact Linda Jacobs, Director of Development, at 215-440-3434 or [email protected].
Meeting Patrons
Photo by Frank Margeson.
The APS encourages contributions to the endowment of the Meetings, an APS tradition that reaches back to the year of its founding. Meeting Patrons are recognized on a prominent plaque in Benjamin Franklin Hall. Planned gifts (including intended bequests, if sufficiently documented) as well as outright gifts are accepted for this purpose.
The titles of the gift levels below pay tribute to the first eight members of the American Philosophical Society (not including the founder, for whom Benjamin Franklin Hall is named). These eight “Men of Speculation,” along with Franklin, embody the tradition of APS Meetings, which continue to bring together leading thinkers and doers of their times to share observations, experiments, and research. The descriptor following each name is the stated role of that individual in the operation of the APS, as established in its founding Proposal. Engaging profiles of these men are provided in Dr. Whitfield J. Bell Jr.’s Patriot Improvers, which comprises short biographies of APS Members between 1743 and 1768.
Meeting Patron Circles of Support
$1,000,000
John Bartram Circle, Botanist
$500,000
Phineas Bond Circle, Natural Philosopher
$250,000
Thomas Bond Circle, Physician
$100,000
William Coleman Circle, Treasurer
$75,000
Thomas Godfrey Circle, Mathematician
$50,000
Thomas Hopkinson Circle, President
$25,000
William Parsons Circle, Geographer
$10,000
Samuel Rhoads Circle, Mechanician
For more information or to make a gift, please contact Linda Jacobs at 215-440-3434 or [email protected].
