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Innov Aging
Innov Aging
innovateage
Innovation in Aging
2399-5300 Oxford University Press US 

10.1093/geroni/igaa057.1801
igaa057.1801
Abstracts
Session 5085 (Symposium)
AcademicSubjects/SOC02600
The Development of a Stakeholder Member Organization to Advocate for Geriatrics Education
Waters Leland 1 Perweiler Elyse 2 1 
Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia, United States
2 
Rowan University School of Osteopathic Medicine, Stratford, New Jersey, United States
2020 
16 12 2020 
16 12 2020 
4 Suppl 1 Program Abstracts from The GSA 2020 Annual Scientific Meeting “Turning 75: Why Age Matters”550 551
© The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Gerontological Society of America.2020This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Abstract
The National Association of Geriatric Education Centers organization was established in 1990, to promote interdisciplinary geriatric education and to provide a unified voice for Geriatric Education Centers (GECs). In 2005, the GECs voted to form two non-profit organizations due to restrictions related to lobbying activities. An umbrella organization was created, the National Association for Geriatric Education, that includes all geriatric related education programs, and maintain a lobbyist in Washington DC to protect the GECs interests. It was a pivotal time, as we had a year (2006) without federal funding that summarily dismantled the DHHS-HRSA geriatrics programs, including the entire GEC network, the geriatric fellowship program, and Geriatric Academic Career Awards. This resulted in a GEC-wide and national geriatrics movement that succeeded in restoring the geriatrics line item in the President’s budget. Our advocacy efforts not only had the line item restored, but obtained an increase in funding for geriatrics.