Anne Marbarger of Curebound On 5 Things You Need To Know To Successfully Lead A Nonprofit Organization
Don’t expect a nine to five if you really want to make a difference. Usually, at nonprofits, you have to wear a lot of hats. There’s this scrappy environment where you need to be able to build on your successes, and resources usually aren’t abundant. You have to have the hustle to meet donors, board members, and community leaders when it’s convenient for them, and there are tasks after office hours, staying up late to read, think, or answer emails.
As part of my series about “individuals and organizations making an important social impact”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Anne Marbarger, Chief Executive Officer of Curebound.
Anne Marbarger is CEO of Curebound, a San Diego-based 501(c)(3) philanthropic organization that raises and invests strategic funding in translational cancer research and collaborative research projects aimed at accelerating cures for cancer in our lifetime.
Before becoming CEO of Curebound, Anne led the organization’s predecessor, Padres Pedal the Cause, for six years; there she expanded beneficiary research partnerships and forged the Curebound brand and one of the largest cancer fundraising events on the West Coast.
She has also worked in management consulting in Deloitte Consulting’s federal human capital practice; served as an intelligence analyst at the United States Treasury Department with a focus on major Middle East terrorist organizations’ illicit funding sources and use of the U.S. financial system. Previously, Anne played soccer at Dartmouth College and professionally in Iceland, and was recognized as Non-Profit Director of the Year by Corporate Directors Forum in 2023.
Thank you so much for doing this with us. Before we begin our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”?
I have a unique background that led to this wonderful opportunity of having the chance to lead the San Diego community to become the city that cures cancer. After playing soccer and studying international relations at Dartmouth College, I landed my first job as a professional soccer player in the Icelandic Women’s Premier League, immediately after graduating. The coach reached out and offered to pay my airfare and housing, get me a job, and pay me to play. It was an offer I couldn’t pass up and a dream come true. After playing in Iceland and traveling around Europe for a couple months, I returned to the United States, ready to pursue a career in national security.
The thesis I wrote senior year of college on the United Nations and International Counter-Terrorism Efforts proved to be useful, and I landed an opportunity as an intelligence analyst at the U.S. Department of the Treasury. I focused on a major Middle Eastern terrorist organization and the patterns, relationships, entities involved in money transfer. In some respects, my work at Curebound is the opposite of my work at the Treasury Department; now I examine and build relationships with the goal of increasing philanthropic funding to the noble cause of curing cancer.
Being an intelligence analyst can be pretty isolating and hard to measure the impact, so after four years, I left to get my MBA at George Washington University, then transitioned to Deloitte Consulting, where I joined their Federal Human Capital practice. Drawing off my experience inside the government and my interest in relationship building and problem solving, consulting was a great opportunity to learn and build a broadly applicable skillset.
While at the Treasury Department and Deloitte, I started teaching spin classes in the evening and doing long-distance triathlons to satisfy my love of sports and athletic competition. I remember having a hard time reconciling the very measurable impact I could have on health and wellness as a coach and athlete, with the intellectually stimulating, yet sometimes hard to measure, work of trying to improve the federal government as a consultant. Ultimately, I was ready for a role focused on improving health and was lucky to learn about Padres Pedal the Cause from a mentor and family friend I knew from growing up in St. Louis. When Bill Koman described Pedal the Cause, I knew I had to take the opportunity.
Can you tell us the story behind why you decided to start or join your non nonprofit?
Before coming to Curebound, I was working with a career coach and thinking through my passions. How do I like to spend my time? What are my skill sets? Who do I know that I could talk to about them?
I decided to reach out to Bill Koman, the founder of our predecessor organization in San Diego, Padres Pedal the Cause. I had grown up across the street from his family in Saint Louis — they knew I went to Dartmouth and later, they would come to Washington, DC with their young girls, and I would bring them to the Treasury Department and we’d have dinner — and I always looked up to the Koman family as mentors and friends.
Bill suggested I move to San Diego. “You’re into cycling; you’re a management consultant who can solve problems, and we need help with Pedal the Cause,” he said.
It didn’t take long to convince me. At the time I was riding 100 miles on my bike by myself; the fact that Pedal the Cause was a small organization where I could come in and measure my impact sounded super appealing. Plus, talks were underway to partner with the San Diego Padres, so I saw a clear opportunity to make a significant and direct impact on community health, which was something I couldn’t pass up.
Can you describe how you or your organization aims to make a significant social impact?
At Curebound, our mission is to mobilize San Diego to accelerate cures for cancer in our lifetime. We invest broadly and deeply in innovations that accelerate cures. I can describe that through a few different lenses or dimensions.
One out of three people are predicted to be diagnosed with cancer. That means that almost every single family will likely have a cancer experience.
There are significant emotional tolls, health tolls, shortened lifespan, the uncertainty and fear and the disruption of cancer on a family, plus the economic hardship. Simply put, it’s a terrible disease that causes suffering for so many people.
Then there’s a layer for Curebound that we see the potential of the San Diego community, with this exceptional life science community and San Diego being one of the top three economic clusters in the country. One of the things that we think that’s different here than in San Francisco or Boston, for example, is the spirit of collaboration and the willingness to work together. In some respects, I liken it to Washington DC, and the concept of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC). The government created the NCTC so that the CIA, the NSA, DoD and FBI could all talk to each other, because even while they are focused on the same enemy, they tend to otherwise operate in a more silo-focused fashion.
I think it’s the opposite of that with silos here at Curebound. We are more like an engine that sees the potential, has partnerships with research institutions, and helps to create, incentivize and fund collaborations across them. It’s really powerful.
In addition to having a very important focus on the family and individual cancer patients, there’s another focus for us at Curebound and that’s on advancing San Diego as a global hub in terms of discoveries and cures for cancer, with collaboration across institutions and the community being real levers that we apply to advance collaboration in cancer research.
Without saying any names, can you share a story about an individual who was helped by your idea so far?
There are a handful of people that come to mind. Most of the people that I’m thinking about were otherwise totally healthy: they lived healthy lifestyles, didn’t have chronic illness or a genetic predisposition that would indicate cancer was coming.
They get this shock, going into the doctor with a stomachache or a cough and coming out with a diagnosis of Stage 4 lung cancer or Stage 4 ovarian cancer. To see how someone, and not just them, but their families, are dealing with that existential question of: am I going to die? And the family member is thinking: is my loved one going to die? And then it becomes, how much time do I have? And then, what can I do with that time?
I’ve seen the unbelievable strength of families and of individuals after a diagnosis, and how being part of Curebound can give so much hope and purpose.
I’ve said this before, in spoken remarks, there is something worse than having a cancer diagnosis, and that is having a cancer diagnosis without a community to be part of.
That’s what Curebound ultimately provides: community building. We have our roots in event-based fundraising with Padres Pedal the Cause. People start teams of participants, Race for Stace or Bill’s Angels or Fighting for Joe, and it’s usually around a family or close friend that is going through the disease.
If you, as a family member or someone who is diagnosed with cancer, can flip and embrace the community overall when you’re at your most vulnerable stage and tell people about your experience and ask them to help, we have seen that the outcomes can be substantial fundraising, meaningful relationships, and inspiration throughout the community. This can also translate into practical connections into the scientific and research communities that can help to encourage meaningful advancements quickly. I’ve heard some people say: the drug that I’m on now, that is helping to prolong or save my life, was approved only two or three years ago.
We have one individual who describes himself as being on a lily pad and knowing that a therapy is going to work for a certain amount of time and then it’s not going to work. That “lily pad” of a therapy might sink, and he’s going to need to jump onto something else.
He’s looking to us at Curebound to help to encourage that next “lily pad” in the form of a clinical trial or FDA approved drug or collaboration. That’s the hope that Curebound delivers.
To date, we have invested more than $35 million into pioneering cancer research, funding 115 grants, at Curebound, that explore numerous types of adult and pediatric cancer. Our goal for the next three years is to invest $50 million in collaborative grants, public private partnerships, and targeted investments anchored in San Diego, with the potential to spread nationally and globally through scientific collaborations that accelerate better detection, treatment, and cures for a variety of cancers.
Are there three things the community/society/politicians can do to help you address the root of the problem you are trying to solve?
First and foremost, for anyone at any time who hears a friend or a family member is diagnosed or going through cancer, please share Curebound with them. Send them to our website. Give them my phone number. Give them my e-mail address, because we want to be there for that person.
The second thing, for politicians or community leaders, or anyone for that matter, is to come to one of our events. We do Padres Pedal the Cause each spring in San Diego. We do the Concert for Cures in San Diego and have had major headliners like Alicia Keys and Ed Sheeran to help raise funding for cancer research. We also do a series called Curebound Connects for people to learn more about the impact that the San Diego community is having on curing cancer.
The third thing would be to donate. Donate to the Curebound research model. We focus on advancing pioneering cancer research by investing in high-risk/high-reward projects and leverage our scientific and corporate connections to scale and get treatments to patients as fast as possible. Curebound provides the hope we will see cures for cancer in our lifetime.
We are led by five scientific investment pillars: prevention and diagnostic tools, novel approaches and new therapeutic platforms, immunotherapies and personalized vaccines, cancer equities, and pediatric cancers. We have three grant types across those (from our Cure Prize to targeted grants and discovery grants) to fund research ideas at all stages, from early discovery all the way to near clinical trial. Community building and the ability to drive significant funding into research, which are key, differentiate us, because research is extremely expensive, especially the closer it gets to clinical trials.
How do you define “Leadership”? Can you explain what you mean or give an example?
Leadership, and being an effective leader, starts with a vision and a destination. There needs to be a very clear desired outcome, place, or goal in mind.
The second key of effective leadership I’ve learned through sports from so many of the teams I’ve been on — it’s recognizing that it takes a team to get there, that the destination can’t be achieved or reached just by you, as the leader.
The third part is personality and being able to successfully recruit and align people in the right roles, articulate what the vision is in an inspiring way, rouse employees to be a part of the vision, and do the things that are going to get us to the end goal. At Curebound, we are committed to mobilizing San Diego to accelerate cures for cancer.
Leaders also must have an ability to think strategically, know exactly where they’re going, and then be able to break that down into a prioritized set of tasks, functions, and schedules. They need to constantly be in touch with people on the team to understand when is the right time to back off or slow down and when is the right time to pour on the gas.
Based on your experience, what are the “5 Things A Person Should Know Before They Decide To Start A Non Profit”. Please share a story or example for each.
Though I didn’t start Curebound, the five that I would point to with my role as the CEO, are:
1 . Start with purpose. I’ve worked with organizations where, while I had a sense of what we were trying to achieve, I couldn’t tell you what the mission statement was. At Curebound, we built our mission statement with our board, and I think about it on a weekly, if not daily, basis. The whole point of nonprofits is to create public good, and while I don’t really like the word charity, we are focused on doing good for the community and for society in helping to fund research and enable collaboration to find cures for cancer.
Being very clear about the mission is important because it should guide everything: who is selected to lead, who is on the board of directors; the staffing, hiring. If the mission is wrong, then everything crumbles. I’ve seen many times, at other organizations, decisions that are being swayed by or led not through the lens of the mission, but through ulterior motives, and it can be corrosive. If your goal is to serve a cause, making decisions with the mission and purpose in mind is absolutely key.
2 . Storytelling. I’ve been with Curebound for nine years, and three or four years in my previous roles. So, I don’t know if I would have learned this in other professions, but because nonprofits have to consistently raise money to support their missions, the ability for the leader and people on the team to tell compelling stories, to connect with people, builds a connection from the heart. This is critical for nonprofits that are traditionally relying on a heavy donor base, volunteer engagement, and others who need to understand the “why.”
We’ve been taught to listen to stories since we were tiny. Everyone can understand and relate to a story, and it automatically forces the person telling the story to do it in a way that the person they’re talking to is able to understand. That’s the magic and the power of a story.
Forget about the statistics for a moment and speak from the heart. Build relationships and bring in the facts later. Every board meeting and every time I speak publicly, I think of at least one captivating story that frames it for the audience and grabs their attention.
3 . Don’t expect a nine to five if you really want to make a difference. Usually, at nonprofits, you have to wear a lot of hats. There’s this scrappy environment where you need to be able to build on your successes, and resources usually aren’t abundant. You have to have the hustle to meet donors, board members, and community leaders when it’s convenient for them, and there are tasks after office hours, staying up late to read, think, or answer emails.
4 . Focus on relationships. Relationships are key, especially if you’re fundraising. Leaders need to move away from transactional-based processes to building sustaining relationships where people are emotionally invested in the cause, the organization, and in you as a leader. They create such power to learn more about your mission and to drive impact and funding.
5 . Embracing ambiguity and change. I heard this all the time as a competency in the consulting world, and smile because I think about it all the time in the nonprofit world. Be ready for change and be ready to see shades of grey and to step into them. This is especially true for a younger or a rapidly evolving nonprofit or one that is smaller that may not have position descriptions, compensation models, or a well-established blueprint telling you how to do your job or how to adapt to conditions in the economy or environment.
Certainly, things like a pandemic, a downward slump in the economy, disasters, or politics, or from a health perspective, where donors are adapting their behavior to meet real-world situations, can mean that you constantly have to adapt your nonprofit — never the mission of it, but the time at which you are communicating and the tools you use to adapt are key.
Honestly, for our organization, the pandemic was our silver lining. We had raised money through our main Pedal the Cause events from 2013 to 2020, and we actually made the decision prior to the pandemic to move Pedal the Cause from the fall to the spring, and to not have an event in 2020. That cut our operating budget in half. And as soon as I secured enough underwriting to maintain the staff, they got very nimble and creative: if we can’t do an event for thousands of people, how can we do this in a virtual environment where we know the impact of cancer is even worse? We started to think outside the box and come up with meaningful ways that we could lead with the mission and still engage the audience we had cultivated. That allowed me the space to create a group of what has now become our board members to build a strategic plan, which is now Curebound, and to really take the opportunity to do things differently and more effectively.
We are very blessed that very prominent leaders read this column. Is there a person in the world who you would like to talk to, to share the idea behind your non profit? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them. :-)
I would love to talk with Mark Zuckerberg, with the Zuckerberg Initiative radically transforming health with collaboration, out-of-the-box thinking, and rapid results. It would also be great to talk with Priscilla Chan and Melinda Gates, as women leading business, and with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation focused on ending cervical cancer, a disease that kills so many women, and with women’s diseases typically less funded. Michelle Obama would be great, too!
Can you share your favorite “Life Lesson” Quote? How is that relevant to you in your life?
There are so many. A mantra that has motivated me is: keep your focus on the mission. It kept me motivated when I played soccer in college and later professionally, with cycling and long-distance triathlon running, and in every role I have held, including as CEO of Curebound today. In the sports world, for example, if your workout is 57 minutes, don’t write 60; it was 57. You know. Do the work and have a plan to get you to the goal.
How can our readers follow you online?
On LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/anne-marbarger
On Facebook at www.facebook.com/CureboundOFCL
This was very meaningful, thank you so much. We wish you only continued success in your mission.
Photo credit for headshot: Nancy Hearne
Photo credit for other photo(s): Catherine Hatfield — Asilomar Photography
