$1.5 million gift launches GRF capital campaign

San Francisco-A gift of $1,550,000 has kicked off the Glaucoma Research Foundation's (GRF) first year of a comprehensive new strategic plan, said Thomas M. Brunner, GRF president and chief executive officer. The gift from Melza and F.T. Barr supports the foundation's $12 million, 3-year capital campaign setting strategic imperatives through 2011.

"This is an extraordinary gift and sets an inspiring example that beating glaucoma must be everyone's top priority," Brunner said. "An epidemic of blindness from glaucoma may be coming if we don't act now to get ahead of this . . . disease. Following [this] wonderful lead, increased giving from all of us will enable GRF to fund the innovative research that gives genuine hope we will prevail."

F.T. Barr, a GRF board member from Houston, said, "I feel so strongly that GRF is on the right track, [that] I have increased my gift by 50% from our last capital campaign."

The foundation's first major gift program, the Catalyst Circle, was also born in that campaign, bringing in more than 100 donors at the $1,000 level and above.

Strategic imperatives in GRF's plan: