Major Gifts - The Starr Foundation Major Gift

The Thoracic Surgery Foundation is extremely pleased to announce that The Starr Foundation has made a $250,000 gift toward the $3.75 matching committment TSF made to the NHLBI for the Jointly-Sponsored Mentored Clinical Scientist Development Award Program. The ten-year program is designed to develop outstanding cardiothoracic surgeon-scientists.

The Starr Foundation was established in 1955 by Cornelius Vander Starr, an insurance entrepreneur who founded the American International family of insurance and financial services companies, now known as American International Group, Inc. (NYSE:AIG). Mr. Starr, a pioneer of globalization, set up his first insurance venture in Shanghai in 1919. He died in 1968 at the age of 76, leaving his estate to the Foundation.

The Foundation currently has assets of approximately $5 billion, making it one of the largest private foundations in the United States. It makes grants in a number of areas, including education, medicine and healthcare, public policy, human needs, culture and the environment.

Medicine and healthcare have been increasingly important areas to the Foundation in recent years. The Foundation’s grants in these areas are far ranging, including capital grants to hospitals, significant research grants and grants to assist in the provision of healthcare to under-served communities. The Foundation does not provide funding for individual research projects and prefers to focus its funding of research projects at New York City hospitals and research centers.