March 5, 2009 | Read Time: 1 minute
As fund raisers struggle to coax money from donors and foundations bruised by stock market losses and Madoff schemes might want to follow the lead of students at Penn State who have successfully been raising money on their feet for 30 years through an annual 46-hour dance marathon, writes Stephen J. Dubner, an author at The New York Times’ Freakonomics blog.
Known as THON, the no-sitting, no-sleeping event raises money for Penn State Children’s Hospital’s Four Diamonds Fund to help fight pediatric cancer and describes itself as the “largest student-run philanthropy in the world.”
Defying trends elsewhere in philanthropy, Penn’s 2009 THON exceeded last year’s fund-raising result for the fifth year in a row – raising $7,490,133.87 or $874,000 more than the previous year’s total.
— Paula Wasley
