The CLIO Healthcare Awards will present its second annual honorary award, to Stand Up To Cancer (SU2C), on November 12th, 2010. This dedicated award celebrates an organization -- or individual -- for excellence in healthcare communications and for contributing to the improvement of public health. SU2C draws on entertainment industry's resources in unusual ways to engage people all over the country in a movement to end cancer. In 2009, Dr. Mehmet Oz received the inaugural Honorary CLIO Healthcare Award.
Since Stand Up To Cancer's May 2008 launch, more than $83 million worth of grants have been committed to collaborative, multi-institutional "Dream Teams" of scientists and young individual investigators pursuing the most promising translational cancer research. Selected by a prestigious Scientific Advisory Committee and SU2C's partner, the American Association for Cancer Research, these projects are designed to get new therapies to patients quickly and save lives now. The Entertainment Industry Foundation is the umbrella 501(c)(3) non-profit organization of which SU2C is a part.
Several members of Stand Up To Cancer's eight-person leadership team (described below) will attend the Nov. 12th CLIO Healthcare event, with Laura Ziskin, Rusty Robertson and Sue Schwartz accepting for the group.
Acclaimed film producer Laura Ziskin is the creative force behind SU2C. Ziskin, who is a breast cancer survivor, executive produced Stand Up To Cancer's 2008 and 2010 "roadblock" televised fundraising events which collectively aired on four major networks and more than a dozen cable channels. She and a team associated with Laura Ziskin Productions create much of SU2C's video and graphic materials.
Rusty Robertson and Sue Schwartz, award-winning marketers and founding partners of the Robertson Schwartz Agency (RSA), a hybrid marketing and branding company, direct Stand Up To Cancer's marketing and advertising efforts and have significant fundraising responsibilities as well. Commenting on the distinctive approach for which the group is being recognized, Robertson said, "Collaboration and innovation are the twin pillars of SU2C's unique method of funding research, which pushes science forward aggressively, and we thread those values through everything we do. As a result, the depth of our cause-related marketing collaborations with major donors is also unique -- to use science-speak, we become part of each other's DNA." Schwartz added, "The programs we create with companies and organizations like Major League Baseball draw on their relationships with consumers all over the country, enabling us to build a grassroots movement of people energized to help these scientists end cancer. We are incredibly grateful for their support."
Katie Couric serves as one of Stand Up To Cancer's key spokespersons. Long-known as one of the country's premiere broadcast journalists, Couric began her cancer advocacy work after losing her husband, Jay Monahan, to the disease. In 2000, she established the National Colorectal Cancer Research Alliance with the Entertainment Industry Foundation. Colon cancer screening rates increased and the death rate from the disease fell in the ensuing years.
Two executives represent the Entertainment Industry Foundation (EIF) on the Stand Up leadership team. Senior Vice President Kathleen Lobb runs EIF's New York office and manages the SU2C Public Relations effort. As EIF's President and CEO, Lisa Paulsen has ultimate responsibility for the stewardship of SU2C funds, and is a key member of SU2C's fundraising group.
Also heavily involved in fundraising are Sherry Lansing, founder and current chair of the Sherry Lansing Foundation who stepped down from her longtime role as Paramount's CEO to focus on philanthropy, and Ellen Ziffren, a former talent agency executive who co-founded Rob Reiner's I Am Your Child Foundation and helped grow other entertainment industry-based non-profit groups.
The CLIO Healthcare Awards will be held Friday, November 12th, 2010, 7pm to 11pm at Good Units in the Hudson Hotel, 356 W. 58th Street, in New York City. Over 1000 entries from 235 agencies in 27 countries have been reviewed for creative excellence and innovation in advertising and communications in the healthcare industry, with the shortlist posted online at www.cliohealthcare.com. Join us on November 12th to find out who wins a bronze, silver or gold CLIO.
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