Augie In Action! Augie In Action! - Ihrsa

Conquest of a Killer
“
Whether you’re building
a fitness company or
trying to raise money for
a medical cure, the same
three principles apply.
You need an investor,
you need a customer,
and you need a product.
”
64 Club Business International | MARCH 2008 | www.ihrsa.org
‘Black & Blue Bash’ raised $1.9 million
The process confirmed that the group was widely, and uniformly,
respected, but Augie had concerns about entering into a partnership with
it. “The problem with most medically based fund-raising,” he told me
recently, “is that there’s a disconnect in the system. It’s been 67 years since
Lou Gehrig died. Only one FDA drug has been approved to treat ALS—and
it only adds two months to your life.”
Augie became convinced that, in many cases, one of the major impediments
to meaningful progress was a lack of accountability between the actual fundraising
and the associated research. And, for hyper-successful entrepreneurs
such as Augie, accountability is hardwired into their DNA.
Augie approached the MDA with a list of five requirements: (1) 100% of
the funds raised would go to research; (2) AQ would approve the placement
of all research dollars; (3) the money raised would be incremental to—not
substitute for—the MDA’s annual ALS budget; (4) AQ would pay no
overhead, but, rather, only direct expenses; and (5) any other relationship
that AQ brought to the MDA table would fund AQ in perpetuity.
The MDA readily agreed to the terms, and a promising new partnership
was forged.
Formulating a new model
Augie infused the ALS fund-raising community and, by extension, the MDA
with his novel business-style approach. “Whether you’re building a fitness
company, or trying to raise money for a medical cure, the same three
principles apply,” he tells me. “You need an investor, you need a customer,
and you need a product.”