Volume 23, Issue 8 , Pages A25-A26, August 2010
The ASE Foundation—Looking for Your Support
Article Outline
The silent auction added interest to the annual President's Reception in San Diego.
Lifetime Achievement Award winner Itzhak Kronzon, MD, FASE celebrated with his family and colleagues.
From left, Drs. Sanjiv Kaul, Roxy Senior, and Mani Vannan congratulate Meritorius Service Award winner Dr. Harry Rakowski.
Incoming Pediatric Council Chair Leo Lopez and colleagues celebrate with Excellence in Teaching in Pediatrics Award Winner Nancy Ayers.
Attendees peruse the offerings at the silent auction.
2010 ASE President Roberto Lang, MD, FASE served as Master of Ceremonies for the Gala.
As you can see in the pictures on this and the following pages, for 231 attendees, a highlight of the 2010 Scientific Sessions was the ASE Foundation Awards Gala, a festive, sold-out celebration honoring the winners of the 2010 association awards. The event raised nearly $20,000 in support of a research grant for cardiovascular ultrasound. A silent auction brought excitement to the President's Reception in San Diego and added another $9,000 to the support of this Foundation research grant. ASE members and friends, including Drs. Rakowski, Picard, Oh, Kronzon, Kaul, Ryan, Lang, Geiser, Madrazo, Hitchcock, Mor-Avi, Rose, Kendrick, and Lai; Peg Knoll; and generous vendors donated textbooks, professional items, and artwork to the auction.
These new events are just one way to raise the visibility, and secure funding for, the ASE Foundation. Since 2000, ASE has distributed more than 3 million dollars in research grant funding to 84 deserving recipients in four categories. Forty Career Development Awards supported physicians and scientists just beginning their careers in academic echocardiography. ASE's Cardiovascular Sonographer Research Awards have helped 12 sonographers carve out time for their research. Ten Echo Investigator Awards supporting meritorious and innovative research by experienced physicians and scientists have been given since the establishment of this award in 2006. Improvements in the effectiveness, efficiency, and humanity of health care through echocardiography were also supported by 22 ASE Outcomes Research Awards. In addition to research awards, the Foundation has supported travel grants and tuition assistance for sonographer students. After a competitive application process, the attendance of seven sonographers at this year's Scientific Sessions was supported by grants provided by the ASEF.
The association has felt that supporting research is an essential part of its mission and has allocated part of its operational budget for this purpose. Additional research funding was made possible through the support of the ASE Industry Round Table. Recently, however, a variety of organizational needs, the adverse economic environment, and government restrictions on industry contributions to organizations for both research grants and educational offerings have resulted in a reduction in the number of grants that could be awarded by the Society. We fear that in the coming years, support from industry for these purposes may be curtailed even further, and ASE will have to find other ways to make up their traditional contributions to support our research and educational activities.
In 2003, ASE created a Foundation for the sole purpose of promoting education and research. The Foundation's 501(c)3 tax status allows ASE to receive tax-deductible, charitable gifts, and to launch public awareness projects to support these cornerstones of our mission. For the past two years, the Foundation has been ably chaired by ASE Past President Linda Gillam, MD, FASE. Dr. Tom Ryan is serving as chairman for 2010–2011, and Dr. Roberto Lang will take the reins in June 2011.
The Board and Foundation Taskforce have been discussing options for the Society to continue to sustain cardiovascular research and hopefully continue to build support. Currently, the Foundation's goal is to raise money for an endowment, the interest from which would be used to award grants through a peer-reviewed competitive process that is already in place. The major source of funding will be gifts from individuals or other foundations, and the most important donors are members of ASE itself: those who have had successful careers in echocardiography and want to give something back to the field which has given them so much.
Another possible source of revenue is to designate a portion of the membership dues to the ASE Foundation. We could, for instance, transfer any future dues increase to the foundation to be earmarked for research. In this manner, each of us would be supporting research in echocardiography in an active and ongoing manner. A $20 contribution from each member could raise $250,000 on an annual basis. I would like to hear your thoughts regarding this proposal, as well as your suggestions on other ways to raise money for this very important cause. If we do not foster research, particularly by encouraging young people, echocardiography will have no future. This goal can only be reached through the continued support and generosity of the ASE membership.
PII: S0894-7317(10)00547-X
doi:10.1016/j.echo.2010.06.027
© 2010 American Society of Echocardiography. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Volume 23, Issue 8 , Pages A25-A26, August 2010
