Where Your Money Goes

The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) takes great care in placing your donation where it truly belongs: in the hands of scientists working on breakthroughs in cancer research. The role of the AACR Foundation is to raise funds to support this critical work. We strive to keep expenses low to ensure that eighty-eight cents of every dollar raised by the Foundation supports cancer research.

Here are just a few of the AACR’s recent accomplishments:

  • Since 1993, the AACR has awarded more than $547 million in grants to more than 3,400 scientists for research projects that aim to advance the understanding and treatment of cancer. AACR grants support researchers domestically and abroad at every stage of their careers, representing a global commitment to cancer prevention, early detection, interception, and cure. 
  • More than 21,000 registrants from 87 countries and territories participated in the AACR Annual Meeting 2023, the most important cancer research meeting in the world.
  • In 2022, the AACR collaborated with eight scientific organizations to convene 31 conferences in seven countries, bringing cutting-edge cancer science to researchers around the world.
  • Significant additions to the AACR Project GENIE registry this year bring the total number of de-identified genomic records to more than 167,000 sequenced samples from more than 148,000 patients—making it among the largest fully public cancer genomic data sets released to date.
  • The 13th Annual Cancer Progress Report was released during a policy briefing in Washington, D.C. in September 2023. This report is critical to our efforts to increase the public’s understanding of the progress against cancer, while also advocating for increased funding from the federal government to fuel and accelerate this progress. 
  • The AACR has a long history of advancing cancer health equity through programs and initiatives like grant giving, Minorities in Cancer Research, the trailblazing Cancer Health Disparities conference, and the first-of-its-kind Cancer Disparities Progress Report.
  • In July, the AACR convened a first-of-its-kind meeting of many of the nation’s cancer center directors to discuss how the cancer centers could best collaborate to advance cancer research and patient care. These meetings led to the formation of the AACR Cancer Centers Alliance in September 2023.

Financial Documentation

We provide transparency to assure our members and our donors that these dollars are used wisely. The AACR and the AACR Foundation are 501(c)(3) public charities as determined by the Internal Revenue Service. Audited financial statements providing an accurate view of the combined operations of the AACR and the AACR Foundation, in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles, and our latest IRS-990 tax exempt returns can be found here: