I have the pleasure of providing you the statement of Foundation Fighting Blindness’ activities and financial position for the fiscal year that ended on June 30, 2016. Thanks to the continued generosity of our donors, the Foundation is in a strong financial position to continue its work to advance research on treatments and cures for retinal degenerative diseases.

Fiscal year 2016 was a particularly momentous one for the Foundation due to the unprecedented success of the Gordon and Llura Gund Family Challenge. As you have read elsewhere in this report, the challenge surpassed its goal, raising $111.6 million to further FFB’s investment in vision-saving research and treatments. The success of the Gund Challenge will allow us to increase the size and scope of our research investments in preclinical and clinical trial work, leading to what we expect to be broad research and treatment applications.

We will now embark on careful stewardship of the Challenge funds guided by FFB’s Research Oversight Committee’s strategic plan. The plan calls for a $20 million investment in basic discovery, translational, and proof-of-concept research every year for the next five years. The committee, after evaluating the potential of current retinal disease research and related science, including gene and stem-cell therapy, concluded that this level of support for preclinical investigative work has the best chance of leading to U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authorized clinical trials and ultimately FDA-approved treatments.

In other fundraising, FFB’s dinners and other social events continue to do well. FY 2016 revenue from the events program was $9.9 million. FFB’s Vision Walk program is now in its 11th year and has surpassed the $40 million mark for earned revenue.

Finally, our direct-response membership program added $2 million in annual revenue.

In summary, our strong financial position is allowing FFB to make significant investments in critical, emerging research including in such promising areas as stem-cell and gene therapies. I join all those affected by retinal degenerative diseases in thanking our many donors for their generous support of our mission. Our promise in return is to remain good stewards of these dollars and maintain our high annual investments in the key program areas of research and public health education.