Cindy Eller, Executive Director of the Roswell Park Alliance Foundation, Receives National Service Award for Development Officers

BUFFALO, N.Y. — Cindy Eller, the Executive Director of the Roswell Park Alliance Foundation, has been named the 2015 winner of the Lisa Considine Service Award. This prestigious award, given by the National Association of Cancer Center Development Officers (NACCDO), recognizes Eller for her commitment to collaborating with and mentoring her colleagues from other cancer institutions. Pat Mulvey, Vice President for Development at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center and Chair Emeritus of NACCDO, presented the award to Eller at the annual NACCDO meeting last week.

“This award is in acknowledgment of her outstanding accomplishments, leadership skills and the collaborative way in which she works with her peers around the country,” Lee Wortham, Chair, Roswell Park Alliance Foundation, said. “We are so very fortunate to have Cindy leading the Alliance Foundation. Her impact is clearly being felt beyond our borders.”

NACCDO is a cooperative venture of academically-based comprehensive, clinical, basic and consortium cancer centers that are designated by the National Cancer Institute (NCI), or who have investigators that receive NCI grant funds or are members of the Association of American Cancer Institutes. The network was created to share information and resources among the development programs of the cancer centers and to address collectively critical development issues of common concern.

The award pays tribute to Lisa Considine, a founding member of NACCDO who was known for her dedication to helping her colleagues. Lisa passed away in 2013 following a battle with multiple myeloma, and the award symbolizes how Lisa lived her life.

Eller has been an active board member and positive force of NACCDO since 1996. She has served as president for two years, planned the annual national four-day conference, chaired the membership committee for five years and is currently the organization’s treasurer.

Eller was selected as Roswell Park’s first Director of Development in 1988, becoming the first development professional in the 100-year history of the Institute. In 1989, following the loss of Anne Gioia’s daughter to cancer, Anne and her sister-in-law Donna Gioia began working with Eller to make a difference in the lives of other cancer patients at Roswell Park. In partnership with Anne and Donna, Eller helped establish the Roswell Park Alliance Foundation, the not-for-profit that raises funds and manages donations made to Roswell Park. She has been the leading force behind the growth of the Alliance Foundation over the past two decades.

Today, the Roswell Park Alliance Foundation raises and accepts contributions that are put to immediate use to increase the pace from research trials into improved clinical care, to ensure state-of-the-art facilities and to help improve the quality of life for patients and their families at Roswell Park. Donors of the Alliance Foundation support the most promising and impactful initiatives of Roswell Park, the only comprehensive cancer center in Western and Upstate New York. The Alliance Foundation is the inaugural winner of the Torch Award for Philanthropic Excellence presented by the Better Business Bureau Foundation of Upstate New York and is consistently ranked among the top charitable organizations in the U.S. for fiscal responsibility by Charity Navigator. For more information about supporting Roswell Park through the Alliance Foundation or to make a donation, please go online at www.roswellpark.org/giving.

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The mission of Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center is to understand, prevent and cure cancer. Founded in 1898, Roswell Park is one of the first cancer centers in the country to be named a National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer center and remains the only facility with this designation in Upstate New York. The Institute is a member of the prestigious National Comprehensive Cancer Network, an alliance of the nation’s leading cancer centers; maintains affiliate sites; and is a partner in national and international collaborative programs. For more information, visit www.roswellpark.org, call 1-800-ROSWELL (1-800-767-9355) or email AskRoswell@Roswellpark.org. Follow Roswell Park on Facebook and Twitter.