City of Hope’s 2019 Efforts Raising Hope for Disease Cures

The City of Hope’s National Insurance Industry Council had another strong year of raising funds, holding events, and helping out people suffering from diabetes and cancer, according to Ken Birkett, director of development of NIIC for the City of Hope.

“It was a very good year,” Birkett said. “We got much needed money to fund novel therapies that wouldn’t normally be funded.”

The City of Hope is a renowned research institution offering treatments and working on therapies for cancer and diabetes, and since many of their therapies are novel or relatively untried, little funding comes from the government. The institution must instead rely heavily on philanthropic efforts like those of the NIIC.

The NIIC consists of representatives from the property/casualty industry, law firms, brokers, accounting firms, reinsurers, executive placement firms and actuaries in the insurance industry.

The NIIC raised roughly $1.1 million through nine events this year, putting it in the range of the average $1 to $2.5 million in charitable donations each year through fundraising events.

Events this year included two golf tournaments, bowling tournaments, men’s basketball championship viewing parties, and the annual Spirit of Life Gala, held this year in New York at the J.W. Marriott Essex House on Nov. 13.

Birkett reports that 250 people, largely insurance industry professionals, attended the gala to honor Alan Jay Kaufman, chairman, president and CEO of H.W. Kaufman Group, a diversified financial, insurance and real estate company. The company’s principal subsidiary, Burns & Wilcox, was founded in Detroit by his late father, Herbert W. Kaufman.

Burns & Wilcox also held an employee giving program for the City of Hope this year and raised $86,000, and Kaufman himself matched that donation.

The Spirit of Life Award gala is NIIC’s key annual fundraising initiative. Each year an honoree is selected for work done in their profession and for their philanthropic efforts. The honoree is given The Spirit of Life Award, City of Hope’s top honor. Past recipients include: Mike Miller, president and CEO of Scottsdale Insurance Co.; Christopher J. Swift, chairman and chief executive officer of The Hartford; and Tony Markel, the name and the man behind building Markel Corp.

The City of Hope operates on a budget of more than $1 billion per year, and employs roughly 4,000. The Duarte, Calif.-based facility has some impressive accolades. Here are a few:

• Numerous breakthrough cancer drugs, including Herceptin, Rituxan and Avastin, are based on technology pioneered by City of Hope.

• Millions of people with diabetes benefit from synthetic human insulin, developed through research conducted at City of Hope.

• The facility was a pioneer in bone marrow and stem cell transplants, and has performed more than 12,000 bone marrow and stem cell transplants.

• Surgeons at City of Hope have performed more than 10,000 robotic procedures for prostate, kidney, colon, liver, bladder, gynecologic, oral and other cancers.

• City of Hope holds more than 300 patents, and submits nearly 30 applications per year to the Food and Drug Administration for investigational new therapies.

• Scientists at the facility pioneered the application of blood stem cell transplants to treat patients with HIV- and AIDS-related lymphoma.

Researchers there used a new form of gene therapy to achieve the first long-term persistence of anti-HIV genes in patients with AIDS-related lymphoma. This treatment ultimately may cure not only lymphoma, but also HIV/AIDS.