Northwestern University Dance Marathon named the Andrew McDonough B+ Foundation as its primary beneficiary for the 2012 event in a press release Thursday. The Evanston Community Foundation will be the secondary beneficiary for the fifteenth consecutive year.
The B+ (or “Be Positive”) Foundation, founded in 2007 after 14-year-old McDonough died, funds medical research for childhood cancers and improvements in chemotherapy. It also provides financial support to families of children with cancer.
Dance Marathon Public Relations Co-chair Maura Brannigan, a Medill junior, said the process of choosing a primary beneficiary was long and competitive. The B+ Foundation’s mission stood out to the committee because only a small percentage of federal funding helps childhood cancer research, which impacts many families, she said.
“With the B+ Foundation, we felt like their mission would resonate with our community and the national community as well, and that would push us to work even harder than in past years,” Brannigan said.
The partnership between Dance Marathon and the B+ Foundation will initiate the establishment of a Midwest regional branch for the foundation, according to the press release. The goal is to increase the foundation’s national influence.
“We really do believe that they have the means to change the world and that’s something that really excites us,” Brannigan said. “We’re an organization that likes to believe we can change the world. The combination of the two of us will be powerful.”