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We are deeply grateful to the ACCAHC Sustaining Donors Group. Our basic membership dues do not allow us the funding to fulfill on the mission we have set. This group of philanthropists, foundations, businesses and other entities have each committed to at least $5000/year over at least a three year period to provide the platform for ACCAHC's basic operations. From this base, we can engage the collaborative projects, determined by our Working Groups and Board of Directors, to advance the interdisciplinary collaboration necessary in the system we envision which "will deliver effective care that is patient centered, focused on health creation and healing, and readily accessible to all populations." Lucy Gonda, who essentially co-founded and sustained our work from 2004-2009, is honored by ACCAHC as our Founding Philanthropic Partner. See the note on her contributions below.
$10,000/year for 6 years
$5,000/year for 3 years
ACCAHC'S Founding Philanthropic Partner: Lucy GondaIn November of 2003, a group of integrative medicine educators from conventional medical schools and academics from the distinctly-licensed  complementary and alternative healthcare disciplines gathered late at night after the first Bravewell Collaborative Leadership Award Dinner. The group determined that it was time to advance integrative practice by creating open dialogue and better relationships between the diverse academics with a stake in the integrative practice movement.
The ideas generated that night included developing a significant, interactive conference and, second, convening a subset of academics across the complementary healthcare disciplines who would help frame the dialogue with their conventional peers. The group hoped that seed money might come through a friend and colleague who had generously supported other collaborative efforts in the field: Lucy Gonda. When contacted, Ms. Gonda not only came through; she challenged the group to think big. She seeded the founding of both the National Education Dialogue to Advance Integrated Healthcare: Creating Common Ground (NED) and the Academic Consortium for Complementary and Alternative Healthcare (ACCAHC). Work Honored by the IOM and the White House CommissionThe NED and ACCAHC work Gonda co-founded has since been credited by White House Commission on Complementary and Alternative Medicine Policy chair James Gordon, MD as some of most significant fulfillment by the integrative practice community on the Commission's March 2002 recommendations. Stuart Bondurant, MD, chair of the Institute of Medicine Committee on the Use of Complementary and Alternative Medicine in the United States (2005) similarly honored what Gonda made possible: "What you are doing (with NED and ACCAHC), this great collaborative work, is one of the most important things anyone can do to implement [the IOM's] report." Gonda's commitment of $25,000/year for 2008-2009 provided essential nourishment for the present stage of ACCAHC's growth. She has also made clear that it is time for others to step in, and step up, so that these recommendations from the highest levels of US integrative healthcare policy setting can continue to be furthered by our collaboration. Thank you, Lucy! And thanks to the Leo S. Guthman Fund, the NCMIC Foundation and Bastyr University for being the first to come forward.
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Bastyr University is a multidisciplinary university of natural health sciences which offers degree programs in 
Life University, founded in 1974, is a leader in educating students in a vitalistic approach to chiropractic. The mission of the Marietta, Georgia-based institution is to "empower each student with the education, skills and values needed for career success and life fulfillment based on a vitalistic philosophy." The University offers undergraduate, graduate and professional programs, each dedicated to supporting students in "achieving optimum personal performance and the wisdom to become transformational leaders in an increasingly diverse, global and dynamic world."
