Ann Lurie is president of the Ann and Robert H. Lurie Foundation, president of Lurie Investments, Inc., and founder of Africa Infectious Disease Village Clinics, Inc. A distinguished philanthropist, Ann is committed to many causes, including health care, education, social services and the arts.

“When I was young, my mother encouraged me to ‘do a good deed daily.’ Following her advice as a teenager gave me a great deal of personal pleasure, and now, many years later, it still feels good.”

-Ann Lurie

Ann was born and raised in Florida, and has lived in Chicago since 1973. Before starting her family, she worked in public health and pediatric intensive care nursing in rural Florida and at Children’s Memorial Hospital in Chicago.

Ann administers the Ann and Robert H. Lurie Foundation, a private philanthropic foundation in Chicago that provides funding for projects she is passionate about and are aligned with a template she and her late husband Bob developed before he died. While supporting charitable endeavors in Chicago and throughout the world, she has developed a particular interest in funding medical treatment, research, education and prevention.

In 1995, Ann established Lurie Investments, Inc. to administer and manage her investment portfolio, with a concentration on the convergence of technology and the life sciences. In furtherance of Bob’s engineering background, the investments have focused on the miniaturization of technology, from micro to MEMS to nanotechnology, and applications to health care.

Ann founded and served as president of Africa Infectious Disease Village Clinics, Inc. (AID Village Clinics), a registered U.S. public charity focused on providing free quality medical care and public health services to rural communities in southeastern Kenya until its closing in late 2012.

Ann earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Nursing from the University of Florida and, in 2010, was appointed Adjunct Assistant Professor, Preventive Medicine, at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.

She has been awarded honorary degrees from:

Erikson Institute – Doctor of Humane Letters, 2009
University of Florida – Doctor of Public Service, Spring 2009
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor – Doctor of Humane Letters, Winter 2003

PROFESSIONAL AWARDS:

Chicago Magazine, Chicagoans of the Year (December 2012)
Chicago Consular Corps, Global Citizen Award (May 2011)
Research America, Raymond & Beverly Sackler Award for Sustained National Leadership (March 2010)
Anti-Defamation League, Lifetime Achievement Award (March 2009)
National Foundation for Infectious Diseases, 2009
Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Award for Humanitarian Contributions to the Health of Humankind (March 2009)
Harvard Club of Chicago Annual Award (April 2008)
Association of Fundraising Professionals, Distinguished Philanthropist, Chicago (Spring 2006)
Chicago Historical Society, Jane Addams Making History Award for Distinction in Social Service (Spring 2004)
Co-Chair, Host Committee, Princess Diana’s Royal Visit to Chicago (1996)

RECOGNITION:

Featured, Chicago magazine, “The 100 Most Powerful Chicagoans” (March 2012)
Featured, Chronicle of Philanthropy, “America’s 50 most-generous donors committed $7.3 billion in 2007” (January 2008)
Featured, Chicago Life, distributed by the New York Times, “Philanthropy Here and Beyond” (Holiday 2007)
Recognized, Chronicle of Philanthropy, “America’s Top Donors” (Winter 2007)
Featured, Business Week magazine, “United States’ Leading Philanthropists” (2003 and 2004)
Recognized, Crain’s Chicago Business, “Chicago’s 100 Most Influential Women” (Spring 2004)
Recognized, Chicago Sun-Times, “Most Powerful Woman in Philanthropy” (Spring 2004)
Featured, Chronicle of Philanthropy, “Shaped by the 60s, Widow Takes Free-Spirited Approach to Giving” (February 2003)
Recognized, Worth, “The Benefactor 100” (Spring 2000)

Ann’s late husband Bob passed away in 1990 at the age of 48 from colon cancer. Bob earned undergraduate and graduate degrees in engineering from the University of Michigan. As an undergraduate, he worked with his fraternity brother and friend Sam Zell, managing off-campus apartment housing. Several years after college, they joined forces in Chicago, and, together, built what is today Equity Group Investments and its many offshoots.

In their partnership, Bob brought an engineer’s restraint and attention to detail to the business that Sam cultivated. They quickly found their complementary skills formed a winning equation. Neither man feared risk. They shared an acute sense of business direction and trends. And, most importantly, they had unshakeable trust in each other.

After his diagnosis, Bob was cared for by Dr. Steve Rosen at Northwestern University. In 1990, Bob and Ann made the decision to endow the Cancer Center at Northwestern University, known today as the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University.

Bob died on June 20, 1990, two and a half years after his initial diagnosis. His legacy lives on through his wife, his six children, two grandchildren and those who knew him.

Employing direct and transformational philanthropy and research grant funding, Ann Lurie has supported education, social services, arts and health care organizations around the world.

Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago

A cornerstone of Lurie’s philanthropic support is her dedication to medical care, especially pediatric health care. In 2007, she pledged $100 million to help fund construction of the state-of-the-art Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. Lurie Children’s is located in downtown Chicago, adjacent to the campuses of all four of its academic partners: Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine; Northwestern Memorial and Prentice Women’s Hospitals; and the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago.

"Ann Lurie's $100 million gift to help establish the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago will make an extraordinary difference in the health and wellbeing of the region's children when it opens in 2012. Ms. Lurie's gift is even more meaningful because she once worked here as a critical care nurse and knows how philanthropy can transform care."

- Patrick M. Magoon, president and CEO, Children’s Memorial Medical Center, March, 2011

At Children’s Memorial Hospital, Ann endowed a chair in Cancer Cell Biology, and, in an innovative public/private partnership effort with the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health, donated major funding for the Adolescent Medicine Trials Network for HIV/AIDS research.

Northwestern University

While her late husband Bob was being treated at Northwestern, he and Ann endowed what is now the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University, where she continues to provide support and chairs the Advisory Board. Also at Northwestern, she funded both the Diana, Princess of Wales, Professorship in Cancer Research and a Lurie Professorship in Oncology. In 2000, Ann committed the lead funding for construction of the Robert H. Lurie Medical Research Center at Northwestern University.

“In the early years of the 21st century, we anticipate a remarkable expansion of medical knowledge followed by the enhanced ability to treat as well as prevent disease. Northwestern University can be a leading participant in these discoveries, but only if we aggressively expand the research initiative through collaboration between private and public philanthropy under strong University and Medical School leadership."

- Ann Lurie

University of Michigan

Ann’s philanthropy also includes the University of Michigan, Bob’s alma mater.

She funded the construction of the Robert H. Lurie Engineering Center and the Ann and Robert H. Lurie Tower. With Chicago businessman Sam Zell, she established the Institute for Entrepreneurial Studies at the University of Michigan Business School. Drawing on Bob’s education and training in engineering and her nursing background, Ann has actively promoted collaboration between engineering and medicine by endowing a faculty chair at the College of Engineering and contributing the major funding for the Ann and Robert H. Lurie Biomedical Engineering Building and the Robert H. Lurie Nanofabrication Facility.

In tribute to her mother, also a nurse, Ann endowed the Marion Elizabeth Blue Professorship in Children and Families in the School of Social Work, along with a matching challenge grant program to encourage the establishment of fellowships.

Africa Infectious Disease Village Clinics (AID Village Clinics)

Twelve years ago, Ann founded the Mbirikani Clinic and was president of the AID Village Clinics until it closed in late 2012. The Clinics’ Mbirikani Hospital offered comprehensive medical care and public health services to a population of approximately 100,000 semi-nomadic pastoralists, mostly Maasai, in rural southeastern Kenya. AID Village Clinics made a significant impact in addressing the challenges of disease, helping save the lives of thousands and improving the health opportunities for many more.

The Clinics leave behind an important legacy. Among specific accomplishments:

• Over 10,000 individuals have been diagnosed with HIV/AIDS and thousands are receiving care either from our facility or others;
• Mother-to-child-transmission of HIV/AIDS has been reduced to zero among our patients under care;
• Half a generation of infants have been immunized;
• Nearly every resident now sleeps under a mosquito net virtually wiping out malaria in the area;
• Chronic infections have been addressed and in many cases cured;
• Patients have been referred to Nairobi at no cost to them for specialized diagnosis and treatment that could not be carried out at the site.
• Residents have pit latrines where there were previously no sanitary facilities;
• Supplemental feeding has been provided in times of local disaster or drought;
• Waterborne illnesses have declined dramatically due to the use of an inexpensive product to sterilize water;
• Many community members now understand when they are ill and know how to take steps to prevent illness and to monitor their own health;
• A database is in place that can be mined for information about what works – and what does not – to produce positive outcomes in an isolated rural community.

There is much hope for the future. The capacity of Kenyan government institutions has improved, and our patients should be able to avail themselves of care, including HIV/AIDS medications provided through the PEPFAR program. 

OTHER PHILANTHROPIC PROJECTS

Ann Lurie’s philanthropy provides vital support to the critical needs of multiple agencies around the world, including, but not limited to, initiatives addressing hunger, health care deficiencies, animal welfare issues, arts enrichment and conservation programs.

Ann’s extensive list of Chicago-based philanthropy includes:

• Founded and provided major funding to Gilda’s Club, Chicago, a support community for those whose lives have been touched by cancer.
• Endowed Lurie Garden and provided cornerstone funding for the Joan and Irving J. Harris Dance Theater, both at Millennium Park.
• Provided lead gift for capital campaign of Greater Chicago Food Depository, Chicago’s food bank.
• Funded Lurie Family Spay/Neuter Clinic at PAWS, Chicago’s largest no-kill humane animal shelter.
• Endowed annual Christmas party for needy children and low-income seniors at St. Vincent DePaul Center.
• Funded Infant Welfare Society lead poisoning prevention and triage nursing programs.
• Supplies ongoing scholarship support for members of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, the training orchestra of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
• Funded capital construction costs for headquarters of Access Living, a leading force in the disability advocacy community.

Ann’s commitment to global philanthropy includes:

• Endowing The Lurie Prize Program at the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health, an annual $100,000 award that recognizes the outstanding achievements of a promising biomedical research scientist.
• Supporting Riders for Health, a UK-based charity that creates and sustains health care delivery systems in Africa.
• Supported, in cooperation with Save the Children and ONE Love Africa, construction of 30 rural schools in Ethiopia.
• Supporting Ancient Egypt Research Associates, Inc., an archaeological excavation on the Giza plateau.
• Supporting Trust for African Rock Art, an organization creating greater global awareness of the importance and endangered state of African rock art.
• Supporting conservation, education, reforestation and health initiatives of the Maasailand Preservation Trust.
• Funding an HIV/AIDS initiative on the Burma/China border with Pangaea Global Health.
• Funding Human Rights Watch, Horn of Africa research and advocacy activities in Kenya.
• Sponsored the WE-ACTx pediatric care program for HIV/AIDS patients in Rwanda.
• Sponsored a Children’s Memorial Hospital medical team’s travel to Katmandu, Nepal, to perform corrective surgery for pediatric Extrahepatic Portal Hypertension.

• Continuing sponsorship of Kenyan physicians and medical personnel who are pursuing graduate education in International Public Health, Global Health and Masters of Medicine at major academic medical centers in the US, UK, Australia and South Africa.

Below is a list of organizations in which Ann currently has a significant role:

• Lifetime Trustee, Northwestern University Board of Trustees
• Chairman, Advisory Board, Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University
• Member, Board of Directors, Foundation for the National Institutes of Health
• National Honorary Committee, National Osteoporosis Foundation
• Member, Board of Directors, Ancient Egypt Research Associates, Inc.
• President and Member, Board of Directors, Lurie Investments, Inc.
• President and Member, Board of Directors, Ann and Robert H. Lurie Foundation
• Member, Board of Directors, Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago