Schizophrenia Daily News Blog

Top Schizophrenia Philanthropists of 2005

Slate Magazine reported that Ted and Vada Stanley were last year's top charitable contributors in the area of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

At schizophrenia.com we hope that other wealthy families will also help accelerate the program to stop this disease. Research progress is being shown on a monthly basis - but with over 100,000 people developing schizophrenia in the US each year we urgently need to accelerate the development of new therapies to prevent and cure schizophrenia.

The Stanleys donated $54.4 million to the Stanley Medical Research Institute; Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory; NARSAD Mental Health Research Association; the Theodore and Vada Stanley Foundation, and the Treatment Advocacy Center.

Stanley, 74, founder and chairman of BMI, a Norwalk, Conn., company that develops and markets collectible items, and his wife, Vada, 72, gave $28.4 million to the Stanley Medical Research Institute in Bethesda, Md., which they helped create in 1989.

With assets worth $274 million, the institute focuses on researching treatments for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. The Stanleys also donated $5 million to NARSAD, the Mental Health Research Association, in Great Neck, N.Y.; $5 million to Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York for genetic research; and $4 million to the Theodore and Vada Stanley Foundation in Norwalk, Conn.

The foundation's assets total $4 million, and it supports mental-health and crisis-relief charities. The Stanleys started their foundation in 1985, but were not sure where they wanted to focus their philanthropy. The couple found a mission several years later when their son, Jonathan, became mentally ill while he was in college and was eventually diagnosed with bipolar disorder. The Stanleys also gave a total of $10.4 million to more than 70 nonprofit organizations in 2005.

Source: Slate Magazine: The 60 largest American charitable contributions of the year.