Region rallies for Milken's prostate cancer campaign

Michael Milken, the long-retired 1980s junk-bond king and now big-time prostate cancer philanthropist, blew into the Wanamaker's Crystal Tea Room on Tuesday evening for one of the city's bigger and faster-growing charitable events.

He jets around the nation to about 100 of these events a year, flying into Philadelphia on Tuesday from Dallas and planning to immediately depart Philadelphia for Washington.

"I see light at the end of the tunnel," Milken said of cancer cures, adding that he believed philanthropists like those in Philadelphia had to support young scientists as the federal government has curtailed medical-research funding in recent years.

Milken - a prostate cancer survivor himself - reeled off cancer and prostate cancer numbers in an interview here, just as he once reeled off financial data.

Since the early 1990s, Milken's Prostate Cancer Foundation has raised $600 million, and that money has been matched, he said, with $11 billion from federal and state governments, private individuals, and other sources.

Milken pointed to a panel of medical scientists talking to the crowd and estimated they were worth $1 billion in "human capital," and that Philadelphia had to keep them.

This region has answered the call. A dozen years ago, the Prostate Cancer Foundation fund-raiser here was 100 guys teeing off at the Merion Golf Club to raise several hundred thousand dollars.

But enthusiastic local support and creative marketing have brought hundreds of new supporters to the cancer-curing cause.

The event's organizers - local businessmen Clay Hamlin and Neal Rodin - relocated the event to the Ace Golf Club in Lafayette Hill to accommodate 150 golfers. In 2011, they expanded it to the Union League for a dinner and money-raising auctions after golf.

Last year, more than 500 people participated in panel discussions, dinner, and auctions at the Crystal Tea Room, an event that raised $950,000. In addition, the foundation secured $3 million in pledges to finance young researchers with promising approaches to curing prostate cancer at one of five Philadelphia-area institutions: Fox Chase, the University of Pennsylvania, Temple University, Drexel University, or Thomas Jefferson University.

"What is beautiful is that they are all coming together," Rodin said. "It allows us to jump leaps and bounds."

Philadelphia researchers meet monthly and compare notes, perhaps speeding advances. The institutions can devote more research to prostate cancer with the added targeted money.

Rodin said all money from the Philadelphia event goes directly to research, because he and Hamlin pay the out-of-pocket costs - the dinner, invitations, and such. Rodin said he did not know how much that amounted to, adding: "The bills come, and we pay them."

In 2013, the fund-raiser's theme was owners of sports teams, and the event honored Sixers owner Josh Harris.

This year the theme was philanthropy itself, honoring H.F. "Gerry" Lenfest as honorary chairman and offering a tribute to Lewis Katz, a philanthropist and a former co-owner of Interstate General Media. IGM owns The Inquirer, the Philadelphia Daily News, and philly.com. Katz died in a plane crash on May 31. He was a friend of the foundation's and a financial supporter, Rodin said.

Included on the philanthropy panel that spoke between 4 and 5 p.m. on Tuesday were Lenfest, Carole Haas Gravagno, Janet Haas, Eustace Wolfington, and Lawrence Benenson, a New York real estate investor who calls himself a "charitarian," as opposed to a "philanthropist." Milken moderated the panel.

The participants and Milken represented billions of dollars in personal wealth, or funds or foundations earmarked for philanthropy. The Haas family's William Penn Foundation, which focuses giving on the Philadelphia region, has assets of about $2.3 billion.

Lenfest is now the sole owner of Interstate General Media and has given away $1 billion to cultural institutions and other philanthropic causes in the region. He has pledged an additional $100 million to other philanthropic ventures, according to his office. Lenfest earned a fortune through the cable industry.

Milken himself has been involved for decades in philanthropy and has several foundations other than the one for prostate cancer, including FasterCures and the Milken Institute economic think tank.

Rodin said he hoped Tuesday's events would raise more than $4 million, beating last year's total.

Festivities Tuesday night under the Tea Room's chandeliers included auctioning off artwork, an autographed Eagles helmet, and a baseball bat signed by Jimmy Rollins.

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