GOING the DISTANCE CHRIS CODUTO/GETTY IMAGES CHRIS CODUTO/GETTY Cullen Jones, USA Swimming Foundation Ambassador annual report 2017 USA SWIMMING FOUNDATION | 1 GOING the DISTANCE 2017 annual report 2017 TABLE OF CONTENTS Welcome from the Chairman of 2017 Make a Splash Grant 3 the Board and Executive Director 13 Recipients About the USA Swimming 2017 Make a Splash Tour Recap Foundation: 4 Alex Blavatnik: Going All the Way 14 The USA Swimming Foundation Elizabeth Beisel: Paying it 2017 Make a Splash Results serves as the 5 Forward 15 philanthropic arm of USA Swimming. Established in 2004, the Foundation works 2017 Swim-a-Thon Recap to strengthen the sport by saving lives and 6 2017 Donor Honor Roll 16 & Results building champions—in the pool and in life. Whether equipping our children with the 10 Years of Champions Club 2017 Swim-a-Thon Grand Prize life-saving skill of learn-to-swim through 10 17 our Make a Splash initiative or providing financial support to our heroes on the Chase Kalisz: It Takes Two Financials U.S. National Team, the USA Swimming 11 18 Foundation aims to provide the wonderful experience of swimming to kids at all levels 2017 Grant Money Makes Waves Join Us! across the country. To learn more, visit 12 in Gunnison 19 usaswimmingfoundation.org. About the Make a USA Swimming Foundation partners with awareness, and to bring together strategic Splash initiative: learn-to-swim providers and water safety partners to end drowning. To date, more The USA Swimming advocates across the country to provide than 6 million children have received the Foundation’s Make a swimming lessons and educate children and lifesaving gift of swim lessons through the Splash initiative is a their families on the importance of learning USA Swimming Foundation Make a Splash national child-focused how to swim. The USA Swimming Foundation Local Partner network, comprised of more water safety campaign, which aims to provide has invested more than $4.5 million dollars than 850 qualified lesson providers across the opportunity for every child in America to to provide grants to qualified Local Partner the nation. To learn more, visit learn to swim. Through Make a Splash, the learn-to-swim programs, to spread national usaswimmingfoundation.org/makeasplash. 2 | GOING the DISTANCE Dear Friends, FOUNDATION BOARD OF DIRECTORS With the close of 2017 we’re free to reflect on the year’s many successes — and, in the true spirit of our sport, on ways to improve and evolve. The pages that follow paint a detailed Bill Maxson - Chairman picture of the impact of your gift to the USA Swimming Foundation, and celebrate some enormously well-deserving people, partners, and programs. Ron Van Pool – Secretary Elizabeth Beisel The overarching takeaway? Your contributions are an investment in the sport of swimming, Maya Dirado and in the safety of literally millions of children across all 50 states. In 2017, your donation Cecil Gordon made the following possible: Paris Jacobs Greg Rosenbaum • More than $500,000 in grant funding supported 121 Make a Splash Local Partners across the country. Together, our 850 swim lesson providers reached more than one Dave Wiederecht million children in a single year for the first time. In its inaugural decade, our Make a Jim Wood Splash Local Partners have served more than six million children nationwide. Tim Hinchey – Chief Executive Officer • The USA Swimming National Team received $612,000 for the continued growth and FOUNDATION STAFF development of our athletes and coaches, who set the world standard for excellence in the pool year after year, decade after decade. Debbie Hesse – Executive Director • And finally, through a study conducted with researchers at the University of Memphis Tina Dessart – Make a Splash Program and the University of Nevada – Las Vegas, we learned that since 2010, children’s Director swimming ability has increased by 5-10 percent. While we still have a long way to go, Jim Harvey – Chief Financial Officer your gifts make a difference in the safety of millions of American children and the future Jill Johnson – Foundation Coordinator of water safety awareness! Kristina Stockburger – Foundation Contributions like yours fuel our mission of saving lives and building champions by providing Projects Manager support for the highest levels of competitive swimming, and for community programs bringing Scott Usher – Director of Major Gifts unprecedented water safety education to cities big and small, all across America. Nicole Wilson –Senior Manager, Annual Fund As ever, thank you for being a part of it all - your support makes this possible. Here’s to continued growth in 2018! FOUNDATION ATHLETE AMBASSADORS Sincerely, Nathan Adrian Elizabeth Beisel Missy Franklin Bill Maxson Debbie Hesse Rowdy Gaines Board Chair Executive Director Cullen Jones USA Swimming Foundation USA Swimming Foundation Chase Kalisz Jason Lezak Mel Stewart P.S. 2018 has started off strong and we are so appreciative of your continued support. If you haven’t yet, please donate and help make 2018 our most successful year ever. USA SWIMMING FOUNDATION | 3 Going All the Way ALEX BLAVATNIK BEISEL “I’ve seen what National Team swimmers go through as they train L to R: Nic Fink, Hali Flickinger, Kelsi Dahlia, Alex Blavatnik, Nathan Adrian, Elizabeth Beisel, Rowdy Gaines, and Michael full-time. Finding time to study Chadwick. is hard and having a job is pretty much impossible. They could leave the sport, but they choose to swim he gold-medal-winning 4x100 Medley because it’s their passion, and if I TRelay team at the 2017 Maccabiah can support that, I feel fortunate Games was loaded with talent. Jason Leak, to be able to help.” Lenny Krayzelburg, and Anthony Ervin boast 14 Olympic gold medals between them. And the breaststroker? Another swimming hero? Well, yes and no. Alex Blavatnik’s drive for swimming lands him in exclusive company. But before his leg of directors for Warner Music Group, has at those Games — for the team he led and found an inspiring new outlet for his love organized — and before becoming a USA of swimming: philanthropy. He lends Swimming Foundation Trustee, he was just considerable expertise and intellectual a kid who caught the swimming bug. capital to the Foundation’s dual mission, while his financial contributions to the In his home country of Russia, Blavatnik was Donor and Athlete Partner Program provide selected to a high-level national training direct funding for elite swimmers who may program for athletes with significant otherwise be unable to afford the high cost promise. After coming west with his family of training. It’s not the same rush as a tough at 15, he landed a scholarship at Miami morning workout, but the rewards feel no University in Oxford, Ohio. Now, almost 35 less substantial. years later and based in Ft. Lauderdale, he still wakes up early to swim with his “The people involved with this sport are local U.S. Masters team at the nearby so enthusiastic, so passionate about International Swimming Hall of Fame swimming, and I’m the same way,” Blavatnik (ISHOF) pool. said. “I don’t know why I have this bug about it. I didn’t get to the highest levels of As a Foundation Trustee, Blavatnik, by the sport, but it’s a very fulfilling thing in day a high-profile executive on the board my life.” Alex supported Nic Fink through the 2017 Donor Athlete Partner Program. 4 | GOING the DISTANCE Paying it Forward ELIZABETH BEISEL here’s a reason those who give $1,000 Tor more annually to the USA Swimming Foundation are dubbed Champions Club members: their gifts play a big role in supporting the growth and development of the U.S. National Team. Actually being a National Team champion isn’t required — but don’t tell that to Elizabeth Beisel. She retired in 2017 with nine major international medals from the Olympic Games, World Championships, and Pan Pacific Championships. Now she’s pulling double duty. “The Champions Club matters to me because I’ve been an athlete that relied on funding,” said Beisel. “So now as a non-athlete, of course I’m going to be a member. I believe in what they do with that money. I’ve been on the receiving end.” Her will to support the sport of swimming, however, doesn’t stop there. As a USA Swimming Foundation Ambassador, she has taken part in SwimWays National Learn to Swim Day, led hands-on clinics with kids, and in 2016, Beisel formally joined the Foundation’s Board of Directors. She even travels the country to visit with donors, imparting her own unique insights while listening closely to those of the sport’s most ardent supporters. “I’m honored to share my message,” Beisel said. “I have such a passion for teaching kids to be safer around the water, but also for providing National Team funding. It can be an expensive sport, so the financial “Not every champion is going to support really makes a difference in getting have a gold medal. Swimming our swimmers what they need to train and helps people from all walks of compete at the highest levels.” life and provides the tools to be a champion outside the pool too.” Champions come in many forms, and from many avenues. True to form, Elizabeth Beisel wasn’t content to rest on her world-class competitive laurels. Now she’s making Alex supported Nic Fink through the 2017 Donor Athlete waves in a whole new way. Partner Program. USA SWIMMING FOUNDATION | 5 annual report 2017 Tristin and Martin Mannion* $1,000 - $2,499 Doug and Susie Ingram*^ Angela Manzo 92nd Street YM-YWHA Jennifer Kadlecik Marriott International, Inc.