An article in this week’s Time magazine ‘Check your Charity’ highlights parameters you should look for if considering supporting a medical research charity or foundation. Issues highlighted include – what percentage of the funds raised actually go to medical research programs? Is the charity or foundation monitoring outcome metrics to demonstrate progress and success? Children’s Tumor Foundation has already demonstrated fiscal success through our maintained 4 Star Charity Navigator rating and we received a mention in the New York Times last December in reference to wise charitable investments. Now further recognition has come from our metrics of success. In December 2010 the Children’s Tumor Foundation was invited by to join Mr. Mike Milken’s FasterCures group TRAIN (The Research Acceleration and Innovation Network). The FasterCures initiative is focused on bringing business acumen to medical foundations, having them set and live up to metrics, and to place foundations as the central pivot of research progress in the foundation/government/industry triangle. The FasterCures TRAIN is a select group of foundations such as the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation and Michael J Fox Foundation that have demonstrated innovative approaches to advancing research progress as well as developing successful approaches to monitoring the efficacy of our research programs. This week’s Time article highlights the value of TRAIN, in the words of FasterCures Executive Director Margaret Anderson, “those that are willing to change want to learn from other groups … and believe in ‘Let’s make it as efficient as possible.'”
The Children’s Tumor Foundation is delighted to be among the select foundations in TRAIN and will continue to strive to make our neurofibromatosis research programs as effective and accountable as possible.
Checking your Charity? Children’s Tumor Foundation Stands Up!
