EAST news | 2018 Issue 3 8 Development Fund Update Dear Fellow EAST Members: It gives me great pride to let you know the status of the EAST Development Fund. As you may know, EAST funds three recurring projects for our members: INVEST-C, which seeks to link our more junior members with established investigators in our association to provide mentorship regarding designing research projects and obtaining funding, the Trauma Research Scholarship, and the John M. Templeton, Jr., MD Injury Prevention Research Scholarship. The first two benefits require ongoing funding, whereas the Templeton Scholarship is an endowed award thanks to the generosity of the Templeton Family. Maintaining INVEST-C and the Trauma Research Scholarship requires $65,000 per year. Obviously, any new initiatives will require additional funding as well. As such, it is imperative that we support the Development Fund as a means to fund both ongoing and future initiatives and scholarships in support of trauma research, education, injury prevention, and service. For the 2018 year, as of August 1, EAST members have given more than $26,000 with the average contribution being $125 per transaction. Yet, only 12% of the membership donated to the Development Fund in 2017, and only 15 members have opted to become recurring donors – numbers that we hope to increase significantly in the coming months and years. The EAST Milestone Donor program is our way of recognizing donors who have reached giving milestones. There are currently 72 such members, and the list of persons who have achieved Milestone status continues to grow. As of now, there are 40 members who are within $1,200 of achieving this status for the first time, and 11 members who are within $1,200 of achieving the next milestone – that’s less than $100/month or, as EAST President, Dr. Andrew Bernard likes to point out, less than one Starbucks drink per day! These members will be contacted by members of the Development Committee to encourage them to push into the next tier and stop drinking so much coffee! If each EAST member who has never donated to the Development Fund simply donated $100 this year, we would raise over $170,000! This is a very achievable goal but requires all of our attention. Aside from member contributions, EAST continues to partner with philanthropic groups as well. The Dorothy K. Commanday Foundation (family foundation of EAST Member, Dr. Jay Yelon) have supported EAST with a total giving to date of $31,170 and the Polk Family Charitable Fund (family foundation of EAST Member Dr. Travis Polk) have given $33,000 to EAST in support of the EAST Oriens Award and education and leadership development. Lastly, this year we launched a new initiative to partner with industry to further support EAST’s mission and financial longevity. We are planning on working with our industry partners to answer questions they have regarding research and development of their products. The biggest asset EAST has is its members and the expertise we provide. We hope to utilize the value of this pool of knowledge to meet the needs of industry and also those of our association. We are also working with industry to support the Traumacasts and webinars, as has been done over the past several years. Are these efforts paying off? Absolutely yes! We are on track to increase the fund by more than $85,000 this year – similar to last year’s growth of $87,000. The Development Fund now has a balance of nearly $1.2 million. However, we need $1.4 million if Babak Sarani, MD, FACS, FCCM