Donations make a difference.
Just ask Shannon Butler, who’s seen
first-hand how giving to research can
change
a life.
After 17 years of living with
epilepsy, she had just about given up
hope of doing the things she’d always
wanted to do—from driving a car to
having children. Test after test had
failed to identify where in her brain
the seizures were coming from.
Donations from a variety of sources,
including a multi-million dollar gift
to the University Hospital Foundation
from Edmontonian Al Owen, helped
expand the University of Alberta’s
MRI (magnetic resonance imaging)
Research Centre. Dr. Don Gross,
Shannon’s doctor and a medical
researcher, believed one of the centre’s
advanced MRI systems could detect
the abnormality in her brain.
Gross is one of many doctors and
researchers who use the centre to
develop new methods for diagnosing
epilepsy and other diseases, including
Parkinson’s, dementia, stroke and
depression. The combination of state-of-the-art equipment and innovative
MRI data analysis techniques proved
to be just what the doctors needed
to help Butler. She had two surgeries
more than a decade ago and has never
had another seizure.
“I started driving, I started a new
career, and I started my family,” says
Butler. “I got the life I had always
dreamed of thanks to world-class
people, world-class equipment and
the world-class research right here in
Alberta. And it was made possible by
Inspired to give
Now Butler and her family are paying
it forward. Her experience inspired
them to form the Butler Family
Foundation and to get involved with
the University Hospital Foundation,
initially as annual donors and now
as supporters of the new $35-million
Brain Centre.
The Butlers are in good company.
Each year, Albertans give millions of
dollars to help improve the health and
wellness of thousands of people across
the province by donating to research
projects in the province. Many such
donations are to the foundations
and trusts that support Alberta
Health Services.
For example, during the past 10 years
the University Hospital Foundation
has invested more than $16 million in
medical research partnerships at the
University of Alberta. The Stollery
Children’s Hospital Foundation gave
$8.5 million to research grants in
2011/2012. The Calgary Health Trust,
the fundraising arm of Alberta Health
Services in Calgary, invested about
$6.2 million in research— 31 per cent
of the $20 million it gave out—in
2012/2013. In the same year, the Alberta
Children’s Hospital Foundation
invested $7.9 million in research.
Most of this money goes to
researchers at the universities of Alberta
and Calgary, many of whom are also
doctors who care for patients. Often
these funds are matched or leveraged
by dollars from other provincial and
federal research agencies.
Many other health-related charitable
organizations also support research.
Case in point: the Heart and Stroke
Foundation had research on the agenda
from the day it was formed in 1956.
Two years later, the first Heart Month
campaign raised $23,800, giving the
foundation funds for its first research
grant and fellowship award in Alberta.
Now, both its research funds and
scope have grown tremendously. In
2013, the Heart and Stroke Foundation
announced funding of $25 million
to the University of Calgary and
$25 million to the University of
Alberta, part of a 10-year $300-million
commitment to heart and stroke
research across Canada.
Industry is also getting into the act.
Each year, Albertans give millions of dollars to research projects
in the province. Their reasons for giving vary, but the results are
similar: they help improve the health and wellness of thousands
of people across the province. Connie Bryson looks at how donor
support is changing lives
