by Dan Lacovara and Wayne Lewis

City of Hope this week is announcing its most ambitious fundraising campaign ever.

The Power of Hope campaign aims to raise $1 billion in contributions to support the institution’s mission to cure and prevent cancer, diabetes and other life-threatening diseases. The campaign will culminate in 2013, coinciding with City of Hope’s 100th anniversary.

Employees hold up cards in Pioneer Park during the shooting of a video to support the Power of Hope campaign. (Photo courtesy The Phelps Group)

Campaign launch festivities for staff members will be held on the Duarte campus April 13.

“This is an inflection point in our organization’s history,” said Michael A. Friedman, M.D., president and chief executive officer. “As City of Hope looks ahead to its second century, we have the remarkable opportunity to advance our research and treatment programs as never before.”

The Power of Hope campaign focuses on three areas critical to City of Hope’s ongoing progress: supporting capital projects, increasing City of Hope’s endowment and raising funds for current use.

To ensure that City of Hope’s infrastructure keeps pace with its drive for scientific advances, the institution will continue to invest in the expansion and upgrading of its facilities. Fundraising staff have been quietly building momentum for the campaign for several years, and capital funding already has resulted in critical new construction.

The Michael Amini Transfusion Medicine Center and Arnold and Mabel Beckman Center for Cancer Immunotherapeutics & Tumor Immunology, both direct results of the Power of Hope campaign, have significantly grown City of Hope’s clinical and scientific capabilities.

Campaign funds also play an essential role in advancing other capital projects currently under way, including a 41,000-square-foot expansion of the Leslie & Susan Gonda (Goldschmied) Diabetes & Genetic Research Center and a major renovation of radiation oncology facilities in the Main Medical Building.

The campaign also seeks to raise endowment funds, which provide long-term support for the mission of the institution. The principal of an endowed gift is invested; interest from that investment provides funding in perpetuity. These funds help recruit and retain faculty, sustain innovative research and teaching and enhance the delivery of compassionate care.

One high-profile 2009 gift from the law firm of Irell & Manella LLP, matched by an anonymous gift, established a $10 million endowment to support City of Hope’s Irell & Manella Graduate School of Biological Sciences. The firm later endowed the Irell & Manella Cancer Center Director’s Distinguished Chair, with Friedman serving as its first holder.

Also important is expanding the base of current-use funds that provide seed money for researchers to explore new ideas. This enables them to initiate projects without depending on start-up funds from governmental agencies — grants that are increasingly hard to secure, explained Richard Jove, Ph.D., holder of the Morgan and Helen Chu Director’s Chair of Beckman Research Institute. Successful early-stage investigations can advance important City of Hope research that might otherwise come to a halt.

City of Hope investigators have advanced new approaches to treating breast, prostate and brain cancers thanks to these current-use funds.

“We are proud to have some of the best minds and hands in science and medicine,” Friedman said. “The Power of Hope campaign is our opportunity to ensure that they have the tools, the lasting support and the flexibility they need to pioneer therapies that help patients lead longer, better lives.”

City of Hope began its campaign fundraising efforts in 2005, and in this “quiet phase” worked to create a base of significant financial support to ensure success. Now, at its public launch, the campaign is more than halfway to its goal, with $550 million raised.

“We are about to embark on our first-ever comprehensive campaign,” said Kathleen Kane, executive vice president of development and external affairs. “This ambitious effort will bring together all of our supporters and excite their long-term and continuing participation, which will make the Power of Hope a reality.”

Traditionally, public launches are marked by a gala event. However, because City of Hope enjoys a broad base of support from donors across the country, the institution will announce the Power of Hope through a series of nationwide newspaper and magazine advertisements on April 14. Ads will appear in publications such as the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, Newsweek and Time.

City of Hope created a Web site, www.powerofhopecampaign.org, to support the campaign. After the public launch, campaign organizers will make available brochures and other printed materials promoting the Power of Hope.

“As supporters of City of Hope, we feel a tremendous sense of pride in this institution’s legacy,” said Anthony Markel, the national campaign chair. “To fully realize our mission of conducting innovative research to improve therapies and save lives, we must recommit ourselves to ensure promising research continues and that we secure a future without cancer and diabetes.”

Power of Hope festivities will take place at noon, April 13, outside Cooper Auditorium. All employees are invited; lunch will be served.