The Board of Directors reviews and approves major programs and the Science Team sets the scientific direction and objectives of the programs. All administrative and overhead costs are underwritten allowing 100% of gifts to go directly to science programs.

All donations will be directed to the designated programs.

Canary Research Award Process

All funding requests are by invitation only. Only exception is the Canary-ACS postdoctoral fellowship program which is administered by the American Cancer Society. Once an invitation has been extended potential funding recipients are asked to complete a Funding Request Form which includes the following sections: Abstract, Research Plan, Budget and Investigator Biosketch. Funding requests are then reviewed by the Canary Science Team at one of our Science Team meetings. The appropriate team leader then decides whether or not to recommend funding this project based on the project's scientific merit and contribution to the relevant program. Projects that are recommended by the team leader are subject to approval by the Executive Director, Dr. Sanjiv Gambhir who considers available funds as well as scientific contribution of the project. Sanjiv in turn recommends to Don Listwin for final decisions. Funds are distributed directly to the award recipient's host institution with an accompanying letter indicating that the funds should be directed towards the specific research project in question.

Canary Foundation Indirect Cost Guidelines

This policy describes the Canary Foundation's guidelines for allowable indirect costs within grants. Indirect or Overhead costs are the institutional costs and services that support all of the work of the grantee organization but which cannot be directly attributed to a particular funded project, for example, rent, mortgage, support equipment, service departments such as general administration, development, or finance (costs that would exist to a large extent whether or not the funded program existed).

The guideline for budgeting indirect costs is 9% of all the direct costs of the funded project, whether the direct costs are incurred by the grantee or by a subcontractor of the grantee. In other words, the 9% may be shared between the grantee and the subcontractor, but collectively the total indirect costs cannot exceed 9% of the direct costs of the project. A grantee and subcontractor may agree to share the 9%, with each collecting less than 9% of its own direct costs. What cannot happen is for a subcontract that is included in the indirect cost base of the grantee to also include 9% indirect (in other words, the indirect costs are charged on indirect costs).