At the end of each year, SRF launches our final fundraising campaign – the aptly named End of Year Campaign – to encourage our donors to donate during the most giving time of year. Most years we have good success in meeting our goal, in large part due to the multitude of donors who believe in our mission to end age-related disease.
2020 was a particularly difficult year for everyone. With the COVID-19 pandemic hitting across the globe, jobs being lost or postponed, families being separated, and loved ones dying, our foundation also took a hit. We struggled to find safe and effective ways to continue our life-saving research, both internally and externally. Our Education program suddenly had to find ways to host the students, or else close the program for this year. The enormously successful Undoing Aging Conference was postponed, then postponed again, as restrictions from various countries became more severe to battle the rise in infections.
This year, more than ever, our End of Year Campaign was vital to the survival of SENS Research Foundation and the work that we do to combat all causes of age-related disease and disability. This includes COVID-19, as the greatest predictor of death from this virus is age.
Despite all the challenges, a long-time supporter of ours came forward with a generous donation and a challenge to our base.
The Michael Antonov Foundation was founded with a vision of extending average human lifespan to over 120 and enabling people to better understand the world and become masters of their own destiny. The foundation makes grants and gifts to 501(c)(3) organizations that perform human longevity-centered research and collaborates with industry players in order to maximize the impact of longevity-centered projects. Michael Antonov, the founder of the foundation, is a serial entrepreneur and philanthropist passionate about taking on a challenge to extend human lifespan and make them more meaningful. In addition to the foundation, Michael Antonov is the founder of Formic Ventures, an early stage longevity-focused venture capital firm and was previously the co-founder and Chief Software Architect at Oculus, where he helped revive the virtual reality industry.
Michael Antonov donated $400,000.00 to SRF outright at the beginning of our campaign, then set up a matching grant of up to $600,000.00 for our supporters to match. His generosity and vision for our cause encouraged eleven other supporters of SRF to turn his offer of doubling donations into a triple donation. The first $525,000.00 of support we received was tripled, and we are thrilled to announce that the full $600,000.00 of the original match was met. SRF raised a total of $2,335,443.46 in this year’s campaign.
Thank you, from all of us at SRF, for your ongoing support. It takes all of us strongly united as a community, to tackle the issues that we at SRF strive to solve. We would not be able to make the progress we do without the support of benefactors like Michael Antonov, and the dedication and generosity of every single donor, particularly during such trying times as we find ourselves currently.
Thank you again. SRF lives another day to #UnlockLongevity.
