Amgen and University Of California, Berkeley Announce Multi-Year Partnership to Assist Cancer Patient Advocacy Organizations in Measuring Effectiveness Of Programs

PRESS RELEASE

THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. and

BERKELEY, Calif.

,

Aug. 18, 2015

/PRNewswire/ --

Amgen

(NASDAQ:AMGN) and the

Center for Social Sector Leadership

at the

University of California

(UC),

Berkeley's

Haas School of Business

today announced a multi-year partnership to offer a graduate-level course on measuring outcomes of cancer patient advocacy education and support programs. The MBA course, Social Impact Metrics, is designed to advance the ability of nonprofit organizations to measure the effectiveness of their programs, which is critical in an increasingly challenging donor environment. The overall goal of the initiative is to create a set of measurement best practices that can be adopted across the cancer nonprofit community and beyond.

Amgen

has awarded four cancer patient advocacy groups - Bladder Cancer Advocacy Network,

Cancer Support Community

,

Chris4Life Colon Cancer Foundation

and Critical Mass - with

$35,000

sponsorships to measure the impact of an educational or support initiative. The Berkeley MBA students and faculty will work with the winners to evaluate a specific metrics challenge, recommend a solution, and provide an implementation plan during the semester-long course from August to

December 2015

.

"Establishing meaningful metrics is critical for nonprofits to improve their impact on the lives of those they serve and demonstrate results to funders," said

Colin Boyle

, deputy director of

University of California, San Francisco

Global Health Services and the Haas faculty member who will be teaching this course.

The partnership was formed based on the results of a survey of cancer nonprofit organizations conducted by

Amgen

in 2013. The study found that creating robust metrics can be a challenge in the social impact field, even as foundations, nonprofits, social enterprises and corporations seek to develop stronger and more significant measures of effectiveness.

"This partnership, like other experiential learning opportunities at UC Berkeley, gives our students a chance to develop and implement solutions in the real world," said

Nora Silver

, faculty director for the

Center for Social Sector Leadership

(formerly known as the

Center for Nonprofit and Public Leadership

). "These types of experiences will prove invaluable to our students as they learn how to forge evidence-based solutions that address current challenges for nonprofits."

"

Amgen

and other healthcare companies provide substantial support to patient advocacy organizations with the hope that, together, we are making a difference in meeting the needs of patients and families," said

Raymond C. Jordan

, senior vice president of Corporate Affairs at

Amgen

. "By measuring the impact of these programs, we can learn how to be more effective in achieving our shared goal of improving the lives of people with cancer.

Amgen

is excited to support this unique initiative that establishes multi-disciplinary collaboration between the pharmaceutical, academic and patient advocacy communities."