Why now?
As we began discussing the Foundation’s Capital Campaign, that was the most common question: “Why now launch an ambitious effort?”
The answer begins with understanding the scope and structure of the Foundation’s portfolio, which is now approaching an accumulative total of $80 million.
First Things First
Several important factors define how these funds can be used.
- More than half of the Foundation’s assets are in restricted accounts and cannot be used for new programs.
- When the Foundation was established, many of the Grants-in-Aid were created without minimum funding levels, meaning they were not increased over time by the donor. Today, a $25,000 minimum is required to establish a named Grants-in-Aid.
- Of the remaining funds, many have fewer restrictions and broader applications, such as the L. Austin Weeks Undergraduate Fund.
- The AAPG Foundation currently operates with a 4-percent annual spending rate, which governs how funds may be distributed each year.
- The AAPG Foundation maintains an Operating Fund that covers overhead costs, ensuring 100 percent of donor contributions support the programs and causes they select.
Here’s Why
First, the AAPG Foundation has evolved significantly in recent years.
Under recent leadership and current Trustees, the Foundation has shifted from a “reactive model” to a “proactive model,” seeking to be both relevant to current conditions and impactful to individual grantees.
Historically, the Foundation focused primarily on education and limited research support. Today its mission has expanded to include outreach programs and innovation in earth science.
As a result, the Foundation is now actively searching for opportunities to help based strongly on a “needs basis.”
For example:
- Regarding research, with the cut in government research funding, the Foundation developed a new grant model called AEGIS (Advanced Energy Geoscience Innovation & Support program) to fund university faculty and graduate students. This year the Foundation awarded eight $100,000 research grants, and the goal is to expand this program next year. The Foundation also is evaluating support for e-publications, such as Search & Discovery, that support geoscience research.
- For education, the Foundation recognized that students are struggling to afford field camp experiences. Last year, through the Foundation Field Camp Scholarship program, the Foundation awarded 30 grants at $3,000 each, and this year 67 scholarships will be awarded at the same amount (see accompanying story) – yet applications still exceed available funding. The Trustees also are targeting opportunities to support student enrichment programs, which help secure the future geoscience pipeline.
- The Foundation is expanding its support of outreach programs. For example, the Foundation is a major supporter of programs like Geoscientists Without Borders, and is currently developing a new Scouting America program for geoscience. It also continues to fund Earth Science Week and K-12 geoscience education programs.
- In addition, we are supporting innovative tools such as Rockd, a mobile app that quickly shows users the surrounding geology and opportunities to look at outcrops and fossils. The Trustees are evaluating opportunities to support other innovative programs.
Second, the Foundation Trustees and staff found that many of the scholarship programs were under-supported, and some funds were stranded due to restrictions that did not change as university programs were modified.
In other words, a scholarship of $500 does not carry the same value it did 20 years ago, so we are modifying our grant program to develop significant grants that are more broadly defined and focus on current needs in geoscience and energy.
Our staff is working hard to improve the Foundation Grants-in-Aid program this year and free-up stranded assets.
Third, more than ever, the impact of Earth science on humanity needs to be recognized. These sciences relate to critical worldwide energy supply in particular sustainable oil and gas reserves plus other major global issues, including CCUS, environment, land use, geohazards, the economy, and national security.
In addition, emerging programs such as critical minerals, geothermal and planetary geology will need support.
This is the most critical point. The mission of the AAPG Foundation is to advance and promote the energy geosciences for the benefit of humanity. The AAPG Foundation is known for its leadership as the world’s leading nonprofit supporter of geoscience. But our work is not done, and the needs continue to grow.
To preserve core geoscience capacity and launch exciting and essential new projects and programs to advance our science, the Foundation must significantly grow its portfolio of gifts and endowments.
With the crisis facing the geosciences today, the Trustees came to an important conclusion: If the AAPG Foundation doesn’t step up, who will?
Now is the moment that matters!
A Defining Moment for Geoscience
It started quietly, but now the news can be shouted: The AAPG Foundation officially has launched a $25-million capital campaign to help secure the future of geoscience research, education and talent development for decades to come.
It is admittedly an ambitious move – but it has been years in the making, carefully considered and designed specifically “for this critical and defining moment” of history, said AAPG Foundation Chair Jim McGhay.
It is the Foundation’s first capital campaign in more than 15 years, and it comes at a time when the future of geosciences is in possible jeopardy.
“Across the country, universities are experiencing declining enrollments, shrinking research capacity and fewer opportunities for students to gain applied experience,” McGhay said. “At the very moment when energy, environmental and subsurface challenges are becoming more complex, the academic pipeline that supports our field is under real strain.”
A “quiet phase” for the campaign has been advancing for the past several months among longtime supporters of the Foundation and its mission; that alone is credited with engaging new donations and support from Foundation faithful.
But now the momentum has intensified, with the result being an urgency for all to join the effort to build a better future – for the profession, and for the world.
To help promote the fund-raising efforts, the Foundation team has designed and structured a new website that not only informs but provides encouragement and tools for those who want to support the campaign.
The colorful and easily accessible website, which will be available in June, features:
- Detailed information on goals and the specific projects that will benefit from the capital campaign
- Interviews with people who both donate to and also receive benefits from the fund
- Testimonials from those who have felt the impact of the AAPG Foundation
- Answers to frequently asked questions
- Tools that make it easy to support the campaign
Strategies and details for this effort have been considered unofficially for several years; current Foundation executive director Rick Fritz first suggested the need for a capital campaign when he was president of AAPG (2020-21), and he has continued to identify the needs and develop a plan over the past decade, first as a consultant and now in his leadership position.
But as in all campaigns, timing is everything – and rapidly changing conditions for the profession and within the industry have become alarming. This capital campaign will now be promoted with purpose, because the need is urgent.
Foundation Trustee Scott Cameron noted that geoscience today “stands at an inflection point, and the tension is not abstract … the future of geosciences and of our profession have reached a critical point, and the time for action is now.”
McGhay agreed.
“The pressures on geoscience are real,” he said, “but so too are the opportunities that await if we respond with focus, generosity and resolve.”
For detailed information, and to support the capital campaign, visit the Foundation website at Campaign.AAPGFoundation.org. You can also contact Foundation team members by email at info@aapgfoundation.org.
Field Camp Scholarship Program: The Second Year is Twice as Good
The results are in, and year two of the AAPG Foundation’s Field Camp Scholarship program is off to a start that’s twice as good as year one.
And that’s saying something, because year one was really, really good.
The AAPG Foundation recently announced that it has awarded 67 Field Camp Scholarships totaling more than $200,000 to support undergraduate geoscience students attending field camp in summer 2026.
That’s a more than twofold increase over the program’s inaugural results in 2025, when the Foundation awarded $90,000 to 30 geoscience students.
“We were very happy with last year’s results, but at the same time we recognized that there was a growing demand for an investment like this in the future of our industry and profession,” said Foundation chair Jim McGhay. “That’s something the Trustees discussed over the past year.
“Certainly, being able to provide much needed support to deserving geoscience students makes us all happy,” McGhay said, adding that the program is a “practical way to help students prepare for their careers in energy.”
The Foundation’s Field Camp Scholarship program was created in 2025 as a replacement for its nearly 30-year-old L. Austin Weeks Undergraduate Grant program.
The Foundation Trustees clearly wanted to continue the intentions and spirit of L. Austin Weeks and his wife, the late Marta Weeks-Wulf, who were enthusiastic and generous supporters of the AAPG Foundation and geoscience education.
While thousands of students benefited from the LAW grants, today’s educational needs and costs outgrew the fund’s original guidelines – which, in turn, inspired the Trustees to seek an updated tactic to help geoscience students.
News of and student interest in the revised program apparently spread over the past year, because for this season the Foundation received 106 eligible applications.
Scholarship recipients were selected from 46 universities – ranging from private liberal arts colleges to large state research institutions – spanning 24 states.
Each scholarship recipient receives a comprehensive support package designed to remove financial barriers and equip students with professional-grade tools. That package includes:
- A $3,000 scholarship to offset field camp tuition and travel costs.
- An inscribed backpack and field notebook.
- A complete field work supply kit.
- A GeoLite Transit surveying instrument, manufactured by Brunton Inc.
Scholarship recipients are chosen from a competitive pool of applicants that are reviewed by AAPG members, led by Committee Chair Kim Parsons, Lakewood, Colo.
“Gaining the knowledge and skills to safely explore and study our planet is an essential part of being a geoscientist,” Parsons said. “Demand for field camp support continues to grow, and this year the Trustees more than doubled the number of scholarships we were able to award.”
Foundation Trustee and Treasurer Valary Schulz, who also served on the FCS Committee, called field camps “a formative experience where the principles learned in the classroom reveal themselves in the outcrops in front of you.
“Those rocks tell a story,” Schulz said, “and every aspiring geoscientist deserves the chance to read it.”
