The Swifty Foundation’s mission is to raise funds and awareness for pediatric brain cancer research by supporting:

Michael Gustafson, the founder of the Swifty Foundation, chose to donate his tissue for research after his death to help find a cure for pediatric brain cancer.

Post-mortem tissue donation is become one of three major priorities for Swifty. Since Michael’s death, Swifty has heard again and again from researchers about the dire need for donated tissue to study. Even when funding for research is available, without tissue, the hands of medical researchers are tied. This remains one of the largest obstacles toward finding a cure, and Swifty is determined to remove this barrier.

Secondly we are working at facilitating collaboration in the field of childhood cancer research: collaboration between the many foundations funding pediatric cancer research, collaboration among research institutions and collaboration between researchers.  Historically, research has been funded using a model based on competition. That funding model must change to gain momentum toward finding a cure.

Our third priority is recurrent medulloblastoma.  This is the disease Michael succumbed to and it has a dismal and unacceptable 5 percent survival rate.