Bruno and Margaret Jonikas
The Legacy Lives On

The Menninger Clinic’s Social Work Fellowship received a much-appreciated boost of support, thanks to an endowment established to honor the memory of longtime supporters Bruno and Margaret Jonikas.

Bruno and Margaret were among Menninger’s most loyal donors, contributing crucial support year after year without fail for nearly three decades. To ensure their support of The Clinic continued well into the future, even after their lifetimes, they established a charitable bequest to Menninger.

Bruno passed away in May 2014 and Margaret followed him in May 2020. Taken together with their final bequest, Bruno and Margaret contributed more than $10 million to The Clinic over the years. In recognition of their exceptional generosity and commitment to mental health, The Clinic is naming the newly endowed fellowship in their honor.

“We are pleased to accept the honoring of the memory of our parents with the Bruno and Margaret Jonikas Social Work Fellowship,” say Bruno and Margaret’s children, Joe, Marjorie, Joan, Marian, and Charlotte. “In a way it will be like our parents live on in the careers of the fellowship recipients.”

Menninger immediately began the recruiting process for the first Jonikas fellow, with training planned to start in September 2021. The endowment, which was made possible by Bruno and Margaret, provides ongoing financial support for the Jonikas Social Work Fellowship, ensuring it continues in perpetuity.

The fellowship training program helps newly graduated post-master’s social workers take an elective year to advance and hone their clinical skills at Menninger. In return, the fellows bring fresh ideas and perspectives to The Clinic. Fellows participate as members of interdisciplinary treatment teams and work directly with patients and their families, often serving as a liaison between the patient, family, and team. Along the way, fellows grow professionally—becoming skilled in treating individuals and families with complex mental health issues and developing into key members of Menninger’s clinical team.

“This is an absolutely amazing gift to support the social work fellowship,” says Cynthia Mulder, LCSW, director of education and training. “It creates a stable base for us to not only continue but grow our training program in a time when it is both needed and difficult to do so. Completing a fellowship at Menninger is transformative to one’s professional career and also to the individuals and families who receive the fellows’ care. I thank the Jonikas family for creating this incredible opportunity to support our ongoing training efforts.”

The Jonikas family says Bruno and Margaret would be proud to support the training of social workers, who they call, “the foot soldiers in the battle to help persons with mental health issues.”

“For those caring for someone with mental health issues, they light the way to solutions for what sometimes seems a hopeless situation,” the family says.

The remainder of Bruno and Margaret’s gift will support Menninger’s general operations, including furthering patient care initiatives, training up-and-coming mental health professionals, advancing scientific research, and reaching the community with free programs and resources.