Celebrating

The Foundation supports the construction of the Charles A. Dana Law Library at Stetson University College of Law, providing half the funding through a challenge grant. Designed with alcoves and open, collaborative spaces together with classrooms, the library introduces a workshop-style approach to legal study. The facility’s extensive collection is accessible to both university students and members of the Bar.

A partnership between Charles A. Dana and Dr. Sidney Farber is formed. Impressed by Farber’s breakthrough successes in treating childhood cancers, the Foundation awards a grant toward the construction of a new facility for the Children’s Cancer Research Foundation in Boston, which becomes one of the country’s major comprehensive cancer centers.

Photo Credit: Dana-Farber Cancer Institute  

The Foundation awards a $5 million grant toward the development of the Comprehensive Cancer Center at the Children’s Cancer Research Foundation in Boston—the largest single grant in the Foundation’s history. An additional grant for $1.5 million is awarded in 1976.

Photo Credit: Dana-Farber Cancer Institute  

Alumni Annual Giving Challenge Grants are launched to strengthen the financial position of colleges and universities by encouraging alumni donations and participation.

The Foundation awards a $10 million challenge grant to the Sidney Farber Cancer Institute to provide a significant endowment and other capital support, for the long-term vitality and scientific stability of the Institute’s research mission. The Institute meets and surpasses both phases of the challenge, for a total of $30 million in new resources from the grant and matching funds. The grant exemplifies the Foundation’s belief that in certain areas of research, it can do the most good by concentrating its resources.

In recognition of the long-term support provided by the Foundation, the Sidney Farber Cancer Institute is renamed the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

Photo Credit: Dana-Farber Cancer Institute  

The Charles A. Dana Awards for Pioneering Achievements in Health and Higher Education are launched to spotlight innovative ideas, and to speed dissemination of their achievements to all who might benefit. The final awards, given in 1999, honor former First Ladies Barbara Bush, Nancy Reagan, Rosalynn Carter, Betty Ford, and Lady Bird Johnson for their efforts to improve health and education for all Americans.

• In the summer of 1990, former President George H.W. Bush issued a presidential proclamation designating the 1990s as the “Decade of the Brain.” Despite this call for greater investment into neuroscience research to help develop treatments for Alzheimer’s disease, schizophrenia, and stroke, federal and other funding dollars did not follow. In November 1992, 30 leading neuroscientists meet at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory to discuss the matter—and determine what the field can do to garner more public and financial support.

The Clinical Hypotheses Program is established to enable investigators to test innovative ideas that, if promising, may compete for more substantial funding elsewhere. The program begins by focusing on the use of imaging to explore the brain’s structure and function in health and disease.

The Publications and Media Division is established to unite the Foundation’s publishing, news bureau, and internet resources to deliver the message about the benefits of brain research and early education. All publications, including a new program of book publishing, are handled by the Dana Press, and media relations are overseen by the Press Office. These changes represent a new level of investment in communications to match the scope of undertakings such as Brain Awareness Week.

The Foundation awards a $7.4 million grant to the David Mahoney Center for Neuro-oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, to initiate a new research and training program on brain tumors, in collaboration with Harvard University.

In partnership with the Science Museum in London, British Association for the Advancement of Science, Wellcome Trust, Wolfson Foundation, and Garfield-Weston Foundation, the Dana Foundation supports the construction of the Dana Centre, a new facility for the Science Museum. The Centre, completed in 2003, is a major meeting ground for scientists, the public, and the media.

• The Dana Arts and Cognition Consortium brings together cognitive neuroscientists from seven universities across the US to explore why arts training has been associated with higher academic performance. The Foundation grants more than $2 million to this three-year initiative, led by neuroscientist Michael Gazzaniga. The report findings allow for a deeper understanding of how to define and evaluate the possible causal relationships between arts training and the ability of the brain to learn in other cognitive domains.

• With support from the Foundation, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) launches judicial education seminars on topics that have or may have a direct impact on legal decisions. This partnership continues through 2020, and grows to include the American Bar Association’s (ABA) Judicial Division, the Federal Judicial Center, and the National Center for State Courts. In 2009, the work is recognized with the Judicial Education Award from the ABA’s Judicial Division’s National Conference of Specialized Court Judges.

• The Foundation joins the BRAIN Initiative Alliance, a public-private collaboration to develop new experimental tools and revolutionize the public’s understanding of the brain, to help lead discussions on the societal implications of research. The Dana Foundation also joins the Science Philanthropy Alliance (SPA), an organization dedicated to increasing philanthropic reach and support for science through grantmaking. In June 2024, the Foundation hosts more than 100 attendees from 30 private foundations for an SPA member meeting in New York City, with a focus on science, ethics, and policy.

• Following a rigorous, two-year selection process, the nearly $20 million Dana Center Initiative is announced in partnership with Mass General Brigham, University of California, Los Angeles, together with Charles Drew University, and Loyola University Chicago. The Initiative aims to ensure public dialogue on the uses and misuses of neuroscience and neurotechnology keeps pace with the rapid developments in research, and aims to drive a cultural shift in the field of neuroscience by advancing community engagement, interdisciplinary research, and field building. The Initiative follows the Foundation’s earlier challenge grant model to catalyze long-term support.

The Foundation joins the newly launched Collective to Strengthen Pathways for Health Research. Spearheaded by the Doris Duke Foundation, these philanthropic partners seek to bring greater attention and resources for breakthrough health research to improve how we prevent and care for disease.