A Message from the Chairman

Bob Lloyd, V Foundation Chairman

Bob Lloyd is the founding Chairman of The V Foundation and a co-founder of the V Foundation Wine Celebration in Napa Valley. Bob and Jimmy V were best friends, and it was Bob who promised Jim that The V Foundation would succeed, and be instrumental in finding cures for cancer.

Dear Friends,

Thank you to all who shared in the  extraordinary 11th Annual V Foundation Wine Celebration event on August 7 & 8th and for being part of our winning  team! The weekend was a huge success with all of our generous donations garnering an impressive $2,255,850 with 100% of every dollar going towards cancer research. Our guests celebrated throughout the weekend at lavish vintner dinners and outdoor wine receptions. 

And of course, everyone was elated to witness personal story telling from our host Coach K, as well as bidding on the many luxury auction lots at Nickel & Nickel during the Gala event. The evening was particularly memorable as the 440 attendees honored our Vintners Grant recipient, Emily Miner by rising over $700,000 for Lung Cancer Research.  It seems that each year the event receives more and more positive feedback as people immerse themselves in the wine country life-style and revel in the reunion spirit it exudes, all the while raising money for cancer research. 

I am also delighted to report that three new members have joined the V Foundation Wine Celebration Board of Directors: Jeffrey Kuhlman, Chief Communications Officer, Audi of America; Brett Hurt, Founder & CEO of Bazaarvoice; and Robert Stone, Attorney, Intellectual Property Litigation. We look forward to their enthusiastic contributions to the Wine Celebration and would like to thank them for embracing Jim’s legacy and helping us to fulfill our mission.

As I did Saturday evening of the event, I’d like to share with you some of the future goals of the V Foundation who has tasked itself with looking at The V Foundation in the Year 2020. I’d like to share our V Vision with you. 

We want to fund more V Scholars, like Dr. Gerold Bepler who is now the Program Leader for thoracic oncology at Moffit Cancer Center in Florida where he and his team were just awarded a $10.5 million from the National Cancer Institute. 

We want to fund more Translational Grant Programs. Dr. Gustavo Leone and his team at Ohio State University Cancer Center received our Translational Grant in 2001 and he received $9 million in additional funding to continue his research. 

We want to fund more Designated Grants to endow chairs at various research centers such as the Joan Rombauer Chair at UCSF, the Gil Nickel Chair at UCLA and the Goodfellow Grant at MD Anderson. Endowed chairs allow research to be undertaken for many years into the future. Lastly, we want to fund more Partners’ in Excellence grants like the one between Duke University and the University of North Carolina which has speeded up the pace of research on breast cancer.

We Have Ideas for New Grants

We want to give 20 new SPORE (Specialized Programs of Research Excellence) Grants. These grants would be given on a competitive basis to centers that have received SPORE money from the NCI and our grants will accelerate to clinical trials the ideas from the best SPORE projects that show the most promise. 

Also new for us would be Ingenuity Grants. These grants are designed to provide funding for high risk, out-of- the-box, innovative research projects that may have difficulty obtaining traditional funding. We want to eventually fund 16 of these grants at $1 million. 

How will we do this? We will continue to give 100% of all new cash donations earmarked directly to valuable research.  We’ve gotten feedback over the past year from the cancer community that no foundation has moved as quickly or quality-wise as The V Foundation with funding going to meaningful research. 

But We are Impatient with the Pace

We want to continue to invest more in our successful grants and are very excited about moving forward with new ones.  Our timing is right! With the advances in science and with your support, we can make even more of a difference in the fight against cancer. 

We hope to see you all back next year on August 6 & 7, 2010 to help us recreate this spectacular experience that has become a significant source of research funding in our fight against cancer.

Kindest Regards, 

Sincerely,

Bob Lloyd

Chairman, The V Foundation
Co-Founder, V Foundation Wine Celebration