Rocked by the deaths of its founders and namesakes, the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation set out to rebuild its brand and infrastructure — and a renewed, more empowered organization emerged.
“One of the things we did was look around at other organizations that have gone through this, such as The Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation, the Susan Komen Foundation, Gilda Radnor’s Gilda’s Club and even places like the Will Rogers Institute, and the body of evidence was actually pretty strong that organizations tended to do as well and, in some cases, even better after the founder was gone,” Wilderotter says.
Going Forward
“One of the things we did was look around at other organizations that have gone through this, such as The Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation, the Susan Komen Foundation, Gilda Radnor’s Gilda’s Club and even places like the Will Rogers Institute, and the body of evidence was actually pretty strong that organizations tended to do as well and, in some cases, even better after the founder was gone,” Wilderotter says.