The AMA Foundation is the philanthropic arm of the American Medical Association. Founded in 1950, the AMA Foundation’s mission is to advance health care through support of programs in medical education, research and service.

Through our partnerships with our donors, the AMA Alliance, AMA affiliations and other organizations, the AMA Foundation works to improve the health of our nation’s communities and strengthen the patient-physician relationship with its better health initiatives. Categorized by the objectives of our mission, the Foundation’s programs are:

Education
The AMA Foundation is dedicated to investing in tomorrow’s physicians by supporting the education of medical school students. Twenty-five percent of all medical students drop-out due to financial constraints. With the generous partnership of the AMA Alliance, the Foundation’s Scholars Fund provides approximately $1,000,000 in tuition assistance every year - exceeding $88,000,000 over the past 50 years - to help young men and women achieve their dreams of becoming doctors. The Foundation provides nearly $300,000 annually in scholarships and various educational awards.

Research
The AMA Foundation is dedicated to advancing health care by supporting the cornerstone of medicine: research.Funding for research projects is critical because it can literally mean the difference between life and death. But support for research is scarce, so the AMA Foundation helps foster medical discoveries by providing more than $85,000 each year through its Seed Grant Research Program and by being the lead sponsor of the National and Regional Student Research Forums with a $75,000 annual contribution.

Service
The AMA Foundation is dedicated to improving the health of all Americans by hosting public education campaigns and supporting community service efforts across the country. In addition to our many service awards for physicians, the Foundation also provides the following programs:

Health Literacy - Based on national literacy statistics, it is estimated that half of all Americans may not have the ability to read, understand or act on health care information, costing the health care system an added $50-$73 billion every year and leading to poor health outcomes for millions of patients. The AMA Foundation seeks to raise awareness of this issue nationally and help those struggling with low health literacy skills.

The Fund For Better Health - Launched in 2002, this grant-making initiative will expand the AMA Foundation’s role in advancing the quality of health care in America at the grassroots level. For its initial year, Fund For Better Health grants supported 25 AMA-affiliated organizations addressing health literacy, anti-tobacco, and violence prevention. Grant winners included AMA Alliance chapters, medical societies, and AMA member groups around the country.

Worldscopes - As a Caring for Humanity project jointly sponsored by the AMA Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs, the AMA Foundation, and the AMA Alliance, WorldScopes hopes to collect 100,000 stethoscopes from US physicians and distribute them - with the help of humanitarian organizations - to communities around the world where medical supplies are scarce.

Thank you for your interest! We hope you will get involved in the AMA Foundation’s efforts to improve the health of our nation’s communities and strengthen the patient-physician relationship!