To make the golf tournament better for donors, and to help us reach our goals, we've made a change to our Birdie sponsorship.

VLCM Foundation is nearing $1 million raised for cancer research at Huntsman Cancer Institute in the time we've been raising money for them. It's our goal to reach that mark with 2018's United Against Cancer charity golf tournament.

It won't be easy--we'll have to raise more than what we've average in the past to do it--but we have high hopes.

To reach that goal (and in the interest of transparency), we're looking for ways to do these things:

1. attract new donors with better marketing and outreach
2. make the tournament a more valuable experience for everyone who donates, whether they come as individuals or representing a company
3. find out whether any of our current donors would be interested in giving more in 2018's tournament

We've noticed that some people buy 2 foursomes for the tournament--donating a total of $3,200. The way we structured our sponsorships actually disincentivized these people from increasing their donation over the years. If they moved to the next highest sponsorship--a Birdie--they would donate more money for research but wouldn't be able to bring two foursomes. The Birdie sponsorship only provided one foursome.

This is no longer the case. A Birdie sponsorship now provides for 2 foursomes at the tournament. If you're someone for whom the structure of that sponsorship prevented you from donating more, it shouldn't now. We hope you'll consider it.

In addition, if you've thought of ways we could improve the tournament over your time supporting cancer research with us, we hope you'll reach out. We want to make this a better experience for you, so we're all ears.