Champion for Cures Award

The AACI Champion for Cures Award was established in 2018 to recognize one or more people or an organization, who, through direct financial support of an AACI cancer center, demonstrate exceptional leadership in advancing cancer research and care and in inspiring others to do the same.

Selected by the AACI Board of Directors from a slate of candidates nominated by AACI members, the awardee has gained distinction through their visionary approach to promoting our shared goal of a future without cancer. Through their transformational philanthropy, which may take many forms—including supporting a new facility, cancer center infrastructure, or programming—the cancer center can focus beyond immediate needs to foster creativity and innovation and multiply its impact on patient health, research, and its surrounding community.

Previous Champion for Cures Award recipients are The 11 Day Power Play, Inc.; Friends of Dartmouth Cancer Center and the Prouty; Dana Dornsife, Lazarex Cancer Foundation; Pelotonia; Sidney and Caroline Kimmel; Phil and Penny Knight; the Jon M. and Karen Huntsman family; and Richard and Susan Rogel.

The Cattlemen's Ball of Nebraska, Inc.

The Cattlemen’s Ball of Nebraska will be honored with the 2026 Champion for Cures Award. Since its founding in 1998, the Cattlemen’s Ball has raised more than $21 million to support cancer research at the Fred & Pamela Buffett Cancer Center in Omaha. Widely recognized as one of the Midwest’s premier charitable events, the Ball is held in a different Nebraska community each year, allowing host communities to highlight the unique character of their region. Each June, thousands of guests gather under the big-top tents—supported by hundreds of volunteers, donors, and patrons whose lives have been touched by cancer—to participate in a truly unforgettable weekend. Funds raised by the Cattlemen’s Ball have a profound and far-reaching impact on cancer research, clinical care, and community education. Over the past decade alone, pilot awards supported by the fundraiser have helped generate preliminary data for 123 projects, leading to approximately $100 million in external grant funding.