A Case Study in Redirecting Restricted Funds for the Greatest Impact

The Harvey L. and Maud C. Sorensen Foundation was established in the will of Harvey Sorensen in 1962.  Six organizations were designated to receive support every year in perpetuity.  Two of these organizations over time had been acquired by large conglomerates, subsequently renamed, and drifted from their original missions.  In 2019, the trustees sought a more impactful way to honor Harvey Sorensen’s desire to support children’s health.

Fortunately, the terms of the trust provided the trustees with the legal authority to pursue other means for distributing restricted funds in accordance with the founder’s wishes.  At the board’s request, Kramer, Blum and Associates, Inc. (KBA) conducted an environmental scan to identify the areas of greatest need within children’s health.  KBA presented to the trustees three possibilities: 1. Mental health; 2. Childhood obesity; and 3. Early child development. The trustees agreed that they were interested in exploring ways to support children’s mental health.  

After consulting with numerous experts in the field and conducting further research, KBA, in turn, presented the trustees with three recommendations to use the Foundation’s restricted funds to effect positive change in children’s mental health:

Option 1: Address the mental health workforce shortage & establish the Sorensen Foundation Scholarship for Master of Social Work students who demonstrate a commitment to pursuing careers providing mental health services to children and teens.  

Option 2: Increase the capacity of primary care providers to integrate mental health care with primary care & to support the Train New Trainers-Primary Care Psychiatry Fellowship.

Option 3: Fund research in child and adolescent psychiatry and establish the Sorensen Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship Award. 

In 2021, the Foundation launched the Sorensen Foundation’s Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.  The program, which is managed by KBA, aims to support translational research that will result in effective treatments and preventions for children with psychiatric disorders and to train fellows to become established investigators. The long-term goal of the fellowship program, which is open to clinician-scientists, is to position fellows to be among the most highly respected investigators in child and adolescent psychiatry and to serve as mentors to succeeding generations of child psychiatrists.