Capital Campaign
Our Professional Home
At a recent event for a number of child consultants from around the city one of our members told the group, “I am so proud to be able to welcome you to my professional home.”
Most of our work consists of one-to-one contact in our offices with patients. Our psychoanalytic training and education, outreach and professional development, however, are all housed at 2420 Sutter. Since 1964 this has been our professional home.
The past few years have brought vital changes to our organization. The 2006 Strategic Plan provides a 21st century vision for psychoanalysis in the San Francisco Bay Area and a blueprint for achieving that renewal. The membership recently approved new bylaws providing a new name and organizational structure to make the vision a reality: The San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis.
The merging of our Foundation into the Center provides a platform for future development by streamlining operations and refocusing the board to a more outward perspective. The Education Committee has made changes to the training analyst appointment system that makes the process more objective and accessible. And now the final piece of our renewal is at hand — bidding farewell to a building that has served us well and completing the interior construction of our new home.
This is no small feat we have undertaken. It will require the commitment of all of us as we set out to raise $5 million: $2 million to build and equip the new building, and $3 million in endowment funds to help support the core programs envisioned in the Strategic Plan.
A Vision and a New Identity
The overwhelming participation in the vote for the new bylaws was a galvanizing moment: it is clear that the membership recognizes the need for a renewal of our purpose and identity. While continuing our traditional mission to train candidates and provide a place for professional enrichment, we need to develop a more dynamic relationship with the surrounding community. We face the future with a new sense of purpose and an expanded mission, going beyond membership and training to engagement with the greater community through outreach and service.
The new building will be the manifestation of our new identity, a home for our work in the 21st century. The Center will provide an exciting, enhanced venue for candidate training and educational programming. With the latest technological advances we will extend our reach and offer distance learning for those in the greater Bay Area and beyond. Our new home will place us at the forefront of psychoanalytic organizations and enhance our ability to partner with other organizations and to invite in the broader community.
An Innovative Partnership – A Tremendous Opportunity
Our partnership with Sunrise Assisted Living Corporation provides a tremendous opportunity to create the Center of our dreams, for only $2 million. In the innovative plan we have developed with Sunrise Assisted Living Corporation, we will lease our land to them and they will pay to build a facility, including a new expanded space for the Center. The costs for their lease of the land and the sublease of our new space will offset each other, and we will have a new home without construction costs and with no ongoing rent or mortgage payments. At the end of 60 years, the building will be ours.
Sunrise is ready to move ahead with construction in late 2007 and they will pay for our relocation expenses. We are extremely fortunate in that our only costs will be for the build-out of our new space, furnishings, equipment and artwork. Our new home will provide an expanded library, the availability of five classroom spaces, a private garden and a dedicated space that will accommodate over 125 people for meetings, classes, lectures and celebrations.
Collaboration and Growth
The past two years have seen many new collaborations and liaisons with the professional community thanks to the efforts of the Outreach Liaison Committee. These outreach efforts, as well as the programs sponsored by the Foundation, have reminded us of the opportunities we have to engage the community. Many programs and services that promote psychoanalysis are offered to the public. Growing our endowment by $3 million provides additional funds to design and market programs to meet identified needs. We can assure appropriate staffing to support those programs and lessen the burden on member volunteers.
Our budget policy has been to adhere to the principle of expending only 5% of the value of our endowment each year, but that amount doesn’t cover the gap between our annual income and operational expenses. Increasing the endowment will help support our core programs and ongoing operations.
Building on Tradition
Fifty years ago there were many who could not envision the building that currently occupies 2420 Sutter Street or all that is accomplished here. The offices, classrooms, and library were the dream of a small group of leaders who understood the need for a permanent location for the Institute and Society. People like Haskell Norman among others made that vision a reality and in doing so continued a tradition on which we continue to build. Since the early days of training under the aegis of the Topeka Psychoanalytic Institute to the formation of our Society in 1941 and, quickly thereafter, our Institute, the organization that came to be SFPI&S has always responded to the needs of our community. The 1961 merger of the Institute and Society, the establishment of the Extension Division, the launching of the Foundation and the special relationship with the Friends all contributed to maintaining our organizational viability and vitality and moved us forward.
We are indebted to those who came before us -- individuals who recognized the need to leave the organization better than they found it. The organization we inherited is a testament to their hard work. We must now decide how future generations of psychoanalysts will view the time the organization was under our care.
This is our defining moment, our time to continue the tradition, to embrace the vision of the San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis and to leave a legacy that will be our professional home for decades to come.
