Children’s Cancer Research Fund (CCRF) is a national nonprofit dedicated to ending childhood cancer. 

Since 1981, we’ve contributed over $200 million to research, support programs for children and families, and awareness and education outreach. During the last fiscal year, 83.2% of funds raised went directly to these program services areas. 

Funding for childhood cancer research pales in comparison to funds available for research into adult cancers. In fact, as a percentage of cancer research funding from the federal government, childhood cancer research funding is in the single digits. It is crucial that we fund safer, more effective treatments for kids with cancer. The road to better treatment options and cures always starts with riders and fundraisers like you. 

Our unique approach to funding research makes your fundraising efforts stretch as far as possible. Here’s why:

We fund research nationwide.

Many organizations fund research at just one hospital or university – we fund researchers across the country, based on where we can make the greatest impact. We’ve funded more than 180 researchers at 30 different research institutions. 

We help your dollar go 18x further.

We focus on providing seed grants that allow researchers to prove their idea, then reach for even larger grants. This model is why, on average, for every $1 CCRF invests in research, our scientists are able to secure $18 of additional funding. 

We focus on young researchers with fresh, ambitious ideas.

Federal funding is not available to researchers until they’ve done enough research and gathered preliminary data to prove something is worth carrying forward. Many other funding sources don’t fund researchers or projects until late in the process, meaning some great ideas may get “stuck” without funding, sometimes for years. CCRF’s goal is to remove the financial roadblocks these young researchers face, “unsticking” their great ideas. 

Your support through Great Cycle Challenge USA allows us to continue our work to fight kids’ cancer and give these kids the brighter futures that they deserve. Together, we can end childhood cancer as we know it. Visit our website to learn more about CCRF and our work. 

Our Research

We help jump start new research and ensure that promising discoveries continue uninterrupted.

We want to ensure that your fundraising efforts have the greatest impact, so we’ve chosen to focus our research funding on five main areas:

Emerging Scientists. Young researchers often struggle to receive funding early in their careers, meaning their great ideas go unexplored. This program funds the next generation of leaders in cancer research. 

Hard-to-Treat Diseases. Our goal is to help researchers develop safer, more effective treatment options for cancer where survival rates remain low or haven’t improved in decades.

Data and Infrastructure. Because childhood cancers are considered rare, global collaboration is necessary for researchers to be successful in finding new treatments and cures. That’s why we support initiatives that make data sharing and analytics easier and more effective for all cancer researchers.

Survivorship. The battle isn’t over when cancer is gone – so we fund research that aims to give every survivor of childhood cancer a long, healthy life after treatment. 

Eliminating Disparities. Children from racial and ethnic minority groups are less likely to survive cancer. We’re funding research that identifies the root cause of these disparities and builds interventions to eliminate them. 

Read about the latest research we’ve funded.

Our Story

In 1979, 13-year-old Katie Hageboeck, from Wayzata, MN, was nearing the end of her 16-month battle with leukemia. Before she died, Katie asked the money she’d been saving for a 10-speed bicycle be donated to a little-known fund for the University of Minnesota called Children’s Cancer Research Fund. 

Katie’s dream was to find a cure so that other kids facing cancer would survive. 

A little over a year after Katie’s passing, her parents, Diana and Norm, and friends of the family organized what they thought was a one-time benefit fundraiser to honor Katie’s wish. 

Forty years later, this “Dawn of a Dream” benefit is still taking place, and Children’s Cancer Research Fund has grown from a small grassroots fundraiser into a national nonprofit committed to finding a cure for childhood cancer. 

Katie never got the chance to ride her new bike, so we now ride to realize her dream of a world without childhood cancer. Since 2015, our community of riders from all 50 states has ridden a total of 25,647,476 miles, and together we’ve raised $52,524,379 in support of research to develop better treatments and carry-on Katie’s legacy. 

Donate with Confidence

We’re committed to complete transparency and accountability with our financial information and how fundraising dollars are used to further our mission. As a result, CCRF is recognized for meeting all 20 standards by the Better Business Bureau Wise Giving Alliance; we are a GuideStar Platinum Participant; and, we meet all the accountability standards from the Charities Review Council.