In 1987, Arthur K. Balin, MD, PhD, FACP, the new president of AGE announced the formation of the Research Fund of the American Aging Association with the first donation.  “This fund will be invested and held in trust by the officers and board of directors of the American Aging Association.  Interest from the fund will be available for the direct support of basic and clinical research designed to elucidate mechanisms of the aging process in order to enhance and extend the functional lifespan of people.

The stipulations on the fund are as follows:

1.      The fund is established in perpetuity and must survive intact even if the American Aging Association ceases to exist.

2.      Income from the fund is to be used for direct support of basic and clinical research designed to understand the basic mechanism(s) of the aging process and on means of intervening in the process(es) with the express long term goal of extending the healthy functional human life span.  This restriction shall not be construed to prohibit expenditures for in vitro research and research on non-human species, so long as the long-term goal of this research is to discover information, which may eventually be useful for increasing the healthy functional human lifespan.

3.      The funds available for aging research are limited to the yearly interest on the principal, less the amount of money needed from the interest to keep the principal on par with the rate of inflation.

4.      The board of directors of the American Aging Association shall be responsible for awarding the research grants.  They may establish a subcommittee to review grant applications and make a recommendation to the board.  They are not required to award grants until the principal exceeds $1,000,000.  They are not required to award more than 5% of the available interest (as specified in section 3) yearly.

5.       The board may decide to require grant recipients to be a member of the American Aging Association and/or present their work at an annual meeting.

The research fund receives a donation each year from the Leslie Bailey Charitable Trust.  This trust was created upon the death of Leslie F. Bailey, a long-standing contributor to AGE.  Under the terms of this trust, the research fund receives 5% of the fair market value of the trust in perpetuity.  The annual distribution to AGE is approximately $6,500 each year.  The research fund account totals $65,944 as of April 2003.