$500 million for cancer research: V Foundation and Susanna Greer and team honor Jim Valvano’s “Don’t Ever Give Up” legacy
On a warm late-summer day in Cary, North Carolina, the V Foundation for Cancer Research crossed a monumental threshold—awarding more than $500 million in grants since its founding in 1993.
The milestone, reached 33 years after the foundation’s launch, symbolizes far more than money; it embodies hope, determination, and a living legacy created by Jim Valvano, the iconic NC State basketball coach whose spirit continues to inspire millions.
Valvano, who led underdog teams to national glory, was diagnosed with metastatic cancer at 46 and told he had less than a year to live. From his hospital bed, he recruited a team not of athletes but of scientists, broadcasters, friends, and donors—with one mission: to fund bold, innovative cancer research that could save others even if it couldn’t save him. With ESPN’s support, the V Foundation was born in 1993.
The foundation’s endowment covers all administrative costs, so 100% of direct donations go straight to research and related programs. That transparency has resonated with donors like Wendy Carter, who walks in charity events inspired by her husband’s survival, and David Martin, a fantasy football commissioner who donates part of his league’s winnings each year.
In the current fiscal year alone, the V Foundation has awarded $52.1 million for high-impact, translational research—supporting everything from early-career scientists’ bold ideas to breakthroughs in pediatric cancer treatment. To date, its funding has seeded nearly 1,500 grants and influenced roughly 1,100 clinical trials.
The foundation’s biggest impacts have emerged in areas where traditional funders often hesitate: high-risk, high-reward science that moves quickly from lab to patient.
Its portfolio has helped advance innovative immunotherapies such as Keytruda (pembrolizumab), which has revolutionized treatment for multiple cancers by harnessing the immune system to fight tumors. Foundation-supported advances have also contributed to new approaches that are doubling survival rates for some pancreatic cancer patients—a disease long marked by poor prognosis.
At the center of that strategy is Susanna F. Greer, Ph.D., the V Foundation’s Chief Scientific Officer, who oversees the grant portfolio and works closely with the Scientific Advisory Committee to direct funding to the most promising areas of cancer research.
An immunologist by training, Greer earned her Ph.D. at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and completed postdoctoral work at UNC Chapel Hill before building an academic career at Georgia State University, where her lab defined key immune signaling pathways in cancer and uncovered new epigenetic targets for therapy. She later served as Senior Scientific Director at the American Cancer Society, leading its Biochemistry and Immunology of Cancer Research Program, expanding donor and industry partnerships, and launching national science communication initiatives.
A Fellow of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB), she now serves on ASBMB’s Council and Finance Committee and holds board roles with the Museum for Medicine and Biomedical Research and the Foundation for Biomedical Research (FBR). In her V Foundation role, she has advanced its distinctive brand of field-shaping science—the kind that challenges existing boundaries and opens new frontiers—while connecting donors and partners with breakthrough discoveries.
Jim Valvano’s presence is still felt powerfully through his family, especially his daughter Jamie, who speaks often about how her father’s final mission gave her life meaning—and, in her words, literally saved her.
She recalls watching him physically decline while his spirit soared, and the “find a cure for cancer” note he kept surrounded by names that became a rallying call for so many. That legacy now connects donors, scientists, and patients, turning financial milestones into deeply personal stories of births, graduations, and moments of survival against the odds.
The $500 million announcement came just days after the foundation’s 28th Annual Napa Wine Celebration, which raised $6.87 million over the July 30–Aug. 2 weekend via auctions and a Fund-A-Need paddle raise.
Since 1999, the event has pushed its lifetime total past $188 million.
Supporters from college basketball circles, including Jim’s friend and rival Dick Vitale, continue to bolster the foundation’s message.
Vitale, who has faced cancer five times, was honored with the Jimmy V Award for Persistence, embodying the spirit of Jim’s famous ESPYS line: “Don’t give up… don’t ever give up.”
Those words, first spoken 33 years ago, now resonate with every person affected by cancer.
Foundation CEO Brandi Williams Broome and Chief Scientific Officer Susanna Greer say the half-billion-dollar milestone reflects countless lives touched and saved. Their model—empowering exceptional researchers to pursue daring questions—has produced leaders in medicine and fueled innovative therapies that might otherwise have been overlooked.
Jim Valvano died 56 days after his stirring ESPYS speech, but the team he built keeps expanding. Scientists, donors, survivors, athletes, and families now unite around a common cause: rewriting the narrative for cancer patients.
The foundation’s promise of “Victory Over Cancer” is not just a slogan but a commitment carried forward in every grant awarded and every discovery made.
On that August Tuesday in 2026, the legacy crossed the $500 million mark—a figure that would have made Jim smile and quickly ask, “What’s next?” For the foundation, the answer is clear: continue championing visionary ideas, funding vital research, and embracing every opportunity to transform cancer care—so that, for far longer into the future, fewer families hear, “There’s nothing more we can do.”