Sure Steps: Fund Raising After five consecutive years of fund raising, donors are turning pledges and events into traditions. Here’s a look at several groups that shore up Center research. Who says golf is boring? No one who’s had the pleasure of attending the SmartCEO/Benelogic Golf Classic, held since 2002 at the Renditions golf course in Davidsonville, Md. This year’s tourney raised roughly $8,600 to benefit the Center. SmartCEO magazine publisher Craig Burris and editor Dave Callahan were among the 144 players up against replicas of the world’s most famous golf holes. Callahan’s mother, Barbara, died of ALS in March 2002. The successful tourney was held in her honor. (Benelogic is a Baltimore-based software company specializing in employee benefit reporting.) At the 2005 Partners in Collaboration awards night, the Kornfeld Foundation was recognized. A philanthropic organization supporting programs in medical research, palliative care and education, the foundation has pledged $450,000 in support over the next three years for the Center. That generosity extends to underwriting the cost of the Center’s monthly investigators’ meetings and annual scientific symposium. Pictured above are Kornfeld’s president, Christopher Angell, and its executive director, Bobye List. Now in its fifth year, MDA's Wings Over Wall Street® has become one of New York’s most celebrated events. It includes a VIP cocktail reception, with exciting live, silent and research minute auctions to benefit the Muscular Dystrophy Association’s ALS research funds. Proceeds are shared by the Center and the ALS team at Columbia University. In 2004, the event raised more than $800,000 for ALS research, bringing its four-year total to more than $4 million. The overflow crowd at the Marriott Marquis in Times Square pays tribute to victims of ALS, including the late Mike Beier and Toni Diamond. Diamond's husband and event founder Warren Schiffer, also a Wings committee member, is pictured above, backed by the Wall Street announcement of the event. |
