APF: A Brief History

Celebrating the Past -- Envisioning the Future

In 1953, Ernest Hilgard, J. McVicker Hunt, and other esteemed colleagues set out with $500 to build a foundation that would promote psychology and extend its benefits to the public. These distinguished psychologists understood the importance of advancing a field with unparalleled potential for understanding behavior and benefiting human welfare.

In 1974, the Foundation embarked on its first major initiative, furthering the psychological understanding of gifted and talented youth. The program continues to enrich the field of giftedness research through its twin goals of attracting new scholars to pursue research on giftedness and, thereby, increase the pool of talent devoted to the advancement and application of knowledge about gifted children.

Throughout the 1980s the Foundation sought to support psychological research, and recognize psychologists whose work lights the way for what can be done to benefit humanity.

In the early 1990s APF embarked on a new era of its development when it hired its first full-time staff member. During this time, the Foundation also began to expand its programs and began focusing on psychological education and fostering the best and brightest students in psychology and supporting crucial research and programs on some of the most pressing issues that our society faces today such as:

• Understanding and treating serious mental illness
• Comprehending and eliminating prejudice such as racism and homophobia
• Preventing violence
• Uncovering the connections between mental and physical health

APF ushered in the new century by launching its first fundraising campaign, Campaign for a New Era. The campaign raised $7.6 million, which has enabled APF to deepen and broaden the scope of its programs, increasing its grant-making capacity by over 150 percent in five years.

Today, the Foundation's assets are $13 million. Although no one can predict APF's path for the next fifty years, we can be assured of its dedication to maximize psychology's potential to transform the world.