The Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

The Dana-Farber Cancer Institute is a prestigious organization dedicated to providing ôexpert, compassionate care to children and adults with cancer while advancing the understanding, diagnosis, treatment, cure, and prevention of cancer and related diseasesö (ôMission and Valuesö). One of the organizationÆs primary activities is developing funding for cancer research, and it finds many fund-raising avenues open to it (Bell, 2). Paradoxically, though, it runs a deficit every year that must be met with unrestricted funds by the Development Office, and says that it has trouble determining which avenues to pursue and which ones to turn down (Bell, 4).

The InstituteÆs primary problem is a lack of unrestricted funding. This occurs in spite of the fact that its biggest calling cardùthe Jimmy Fund, which is ôone of the most beloved charities in New Englandöùhas 96% name recognition (Bell, 9). Although the Institute has a Development Office with 20 personnel in itùmost of whom are directorsùit has imposed a number of constraints on its funding development activities (Bell, 16). One of these is its perceived view of its missionùto promote cancer research. It turned down a donor who wanted to build a cancer care center for children with cancer because this was not directly related to cancer research (Bell, 13). Another constraint is its concern about its prestigious image. It primarily solicits f

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ing to raise funds for the Institute by way of fund raisers or those who wish to donate money directly generally want to direct that the funds be used in a particular way. Someone who has just lost a family member that died from a certain type of cancer, for example, might request that the funds be used for researching that type of cancer. This ties up the funds donated so that funds are not available for supporting events that do not have funds specifically allocated to them. In cases where the Institute does not have an immediate need for funds restricted to a particular type of cancer, it tends to pass up opportunities to gain funding in those areas. This seems to be due to the fact that it is so busy meeting its short-term goals that it does not have the time or resources to address longer-term goals. For example, they refused a $1 million gift for which the donors stipulated that $500,000 needed to go toward research for an aspect of a particular cancer. Even though the donating company went so far as to offer to hire and fund a researcher to lead the effort, the Institute turned down the gift. ôWhile Dana-Farber researchers were cognizant of the need for that type of research, in the short run (the next two years) th
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Approximate Word count = 1223
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page)

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