Michael J. Fox’s Foundation Debuts Among Nation’s Top 100 Charities

Michael J. Fox’s Foundation Debuts Among Nation’s Top 100 Charities

Michael J. Fox speaks onstage during a 2009 benefit for The Michael J. Fox Foundation. The Parkinson's research charity ranks at no. 84 on this year's Forbes top charities list. Celebrity charities have a decidedly mixed track record. But the New York City-based Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research demonstrates how the power of celebrity, when combined with disciplined and steady management, can do good on a sustained basis. The now 60-year-old Canadian-born Fox, who rose to fame starring in the "Family Ties" TV series and "Back to the Future" movie trilogy, launched the charity in 2000. It was a few years after he had publicly disclosed that he'd been coping with the degenerative central nervous system disorder since being diagnosed in 1991, at the age of just 29. He said then that he aimed to find a cure for Parkinson's in his lifetime. It hasn't happened yet, but in two decades the New York-based foundation has pumped more than $1 billion into hundreds of high-risk, high-reward grants for hard research aimed at slowing and eventually eliminating progression of the disease. In 2020, the Fox foundation received a record $200 million in donations—thanks in large part to two large