History and Milestones
Milestones
- 1992
- U.S. Congress passes legislation authorizing the creation of a non-profit foundation to support CDC.
- 1993
- The organizing committee meets to begin the process of developing a foundation.
- 1994
- The organizing committee chooses the first board of directors.
- 1995
- Charles Stokes is appointed executive director.
- Stokes and Doris Riggs open the office in the Hurt Building in downtown Atlanta.
- 1996
- CDC Foundation receives first unrestricted operating grant from the Robert W. Woodruff Foundation.
- Wendell Price funds the Price Fellowship for HIV Prevention to connect non-profit, community-based prevention groups with researchers at CDC.
- CDC Foundation receives first unrestricted operating grant from the Robert W. Woodruff Foundation.
- 1997
- The Coming Plague, a documentary introduced by actor and board member Bill Cosby about the perpetual war against microbes, airs on Turner Broadcasting System and leads to the establishment of the Foundation’s Sally Schieffelin Potter Endowment to fight nosocomial infections.
- 1998
- In partnership with Eli Lilly and Company, the CDC Foundation establishes the Lilly International Laboratory Fellowships to bring international scientists to study infectious diseases at CDC.
- 1999
- The CDC Foundation launches the Management Academy for Public Health to train public health officers in the art and science of management.
- Five journalists are selected as the first fellows in the Knight Public Health Journalism Fellowship, a fellowship funded by the John S. and James T. Knight Foundation.
- The CDC Foundation partners with the American Legacy Foundation to launch the National Youth Tobacco Survey.
The CDC Foundation was a shared dream of CDC leaders who knew that a government agency could benefit from outside partners’ assistance in fighting the world’s toughest public health threats. By 1992, Congress passed legislation authorizing the creation of an independent, non-profit foundation to support CDC, and the following year an organizing committee met to begin turning the idea into reality.
A board of directors was elected in 1994, led by founding chair T. Marshall Hahn, Jr., Ph.D., former chairman and CEO of Georgia-Pacific Corporation. The board recruited Charles Stokes, deputy director of the Missouri Department of Health, as executive director in 1995, and the CDC Foundation opened its doors for business in the Hurt Building in downtown Atlanta. Inaugural grants from CDC and the Robert W. Woodruff Foundation enabled the Foundation to begin creating public-private partnerships that would help CDC do more, faster.
Over the ensuing years, the generosity and confidence of CDC Foundation donors and partners have continued to be instrumental to the Foundation’s rapid growth and progress. Once primarily a program architect and fundraiser, the Foundation now has an extensive track record and portfolio and a growing reputation as an advocate for CDC, as well as a convener and innovator. From international fellowships and leadership training programs, to research projects and education campaigns, the CDC Foundation is expanding the world of possibilities for CDC by connecting people, resources and ideas.
Among the Foundation’s major accomplishments in its first decade are establishing the Management Academy for Public Health to provide leadership training for public health officials; creating an Emergency Preparedness and Response Fund, established after September 11, 2001, to allow CDC field staff to purchase emergency equipment quickly and easily; and equipping CDC’s world-class Emergency Operations Center to monitor and respond to public health threats. We have also launched the Knight Public Health Journalism Fellowship, a unique CDC public health training program for journalists, and created numerous international training programs to expand public health expertise in other countries and enhance their ability to detect and respond to emerging health threats.
From a fledgling foundation with assets of $6.4 million after its first full year of operations, the CDC Foundation has grown to become a powerful CDC ally with almost $27 million in assets and 23 employees. Today, the CDC Foundation oversees dozens of programs that are substantially enhancing CDC’s efforts to protect the health and safety of people around the globe.