In response to the continued mental health, physical health, social and political challenges confronting vulnerable communities in Philadelphia and New York City, the van Ameringen Foundation (vAF) Board will again increase our grants budget in 2022. Mental health remains the central focus of our grantmaking. However, the extraordinary last twenty months have led the vAF Board to continue to be flexible in response to the immediate needs of historically disadvantaged and under-resourced New York City- and Philadelphia-based communities in the wake of the Pandemic.

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The vAF November 2022 Grant Cycle will “open” on May 1, 2022. Letters of Inquiry (LOI’s) are welcomed from that date until June 28, 2022. Applicants may submit an LOI on vAF’s Grants Portal by visiting this link. Please also visit vAF’s Apply for a Grant page for full updates about vAF’s 2022 application timelines and grantmaking deadlines.

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Now more than two years into the outbreak of COVID-19, vAF remains deeply grateful for the heroic efforts and performance of not only the Foundation’s grantee partners, but also of the many outstanding organizations who we haven’t been able to assist, but who, like our grantee partners, are attempting to address the growing needs of the most vulnerable citizens in NYC and Philadelphia. With grace and competence, organization after organization has quickly adapted to remote service provision, all the while keeping essential facilities open to provide critical mental health, safety, healing, housing, education, employment and other services to those most at risk of or managing a significant mental illness. On the advocacy front, our grantee partners have won groundbreaking reforms to decriminalize mental illness, enhance kids’ mental health, limit the use of solitary confinement in prisons and jails, and protect State funding for mental health and substance use treatment. We’re so thankful for their and, if appropriate, your heroic efforts, and we remain deeply committed to supporting more of those efforts in the most expeditious manner possible going forward.

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With hopeful, helpful concern and caring,

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Ken Kind, President
Hugh Hogan, Executive Director
 
On behalf of the van Ameringen Foundation Board of Directors and Staff