Graphic that reads Cancer Nation 40th Anniversary Gala | November 13, 2026 | Washington, DC

Cancer Nation 40th Anniversary Gala

  • Friday, November 13, 2026

  • 6 PM – 9 PM ET

  • Milken Center for Advancing the American Dream | Washington, DC

  • Business and Cocktail Attire

HONORING

A headshot photo of Michael Milken smiling, wearing a grey suit, blue shirt, and yellow tie.

Michael Milken

Philanthropist & Cancer Survivor
Founder, Prostate Cancer Foundation

2026 March Forward Award

Erin Cummings Headshot

Erin Cummings, MSW

Co-Founder
Hodgkins International

Ellen L. Stovall Award
Patient Advocate Award

Bradley Zebrack headshot

Bradley J. Zebrack, PhD

Professor of Social Work
University of Michigan

Ellen L. Stovall Award
Health Care Professional Award
(Co-Presented by ASCO)

Celebrating 40 Years of Advocacy

In 1986, a group of survivors and clinicians who were frustrated with a health care system that treated patients as an afterthought, came together to form the National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship (now Cancer Nation). And for four decades we have advocated for quality care for every person cancer touches.

This November, we invite you to mark that milestone with us at the Cancer Nation 40th Anniversary Gala, held at the Milken Center for Advancing the American Dream.

We will present two honors that capture what this movement has always been about. The inaugural March Forward Award will be given to Michael Milken for four decades spent driving cancer research and care forward. The Ellen L. Stovall Awards for Innovation in Patient-Centered Cancer Care, will be presented to Erin Geddis Cummings and Bradley J. Zebrack for their tireless work to improve the cancer care system and the lives of survivors.

We invite you to stand with us during this milestone year and be part of what’s next.

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Meet the Awardees

A headshot photo of Michael Milken smiling, wearing a grey suit, blue shirt, and yellow tie.
A headshot photo of Michael Milken smiling, wearing a grey suit, blue shirt, and yellow tie.

Michael Milken

2026 March Forward Award

Michael Milken will receive Cancer Nation’s March Forward Award in recognition of his extraordinary leadership and lasting impact on cancer research, innovation, and the survivorship movement. Milken’s connection to the cancer survivorship movement reaches back decades. He partnered early with the National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship, now Cancer Nation, to co-chair THE MARCH: Coming Together To Conquer Cancer in 1998, when hundreds of thousands of survivors, advocates, and policymakers filled the National Mall and other venues across the country to demand better care and the research to make it possible.

The March launched a successful effort that doubled the budget of the National Institutes of Health, elevated cancer as a national priority, and brought to the national stage a survivorship movement that is still going strong nearly three decades later.

A collage of photos from The MARCH in 1998.

Photos from THE MARCH on the National Mall, September 1998.

Milken did not stop there. Through the Milken Institute and the FasterCures initiative, he has spent decades tearing down the barriers between discovery and the survivors waiting on it. He founded the Prostate Cancer Foundation, now the world’s largest philanthropic source of prostate cancer research funding, and helped launch the Melanoma Research Alliance. He pushed for the 21st Century Cures Act until it became law. His 2023 book, Faster Cures: Accelerating the Future of Health, makes the case he has been making for 50 years: waiting is not a strategy.

Survivors know the cost of waiting better than anyone. Milken has spent a lifetime refusing to accept it.

His decades of leadership embody the spirit of the March Forward Award: the belief that meaningful progress in cancer care does not simply happen. We march toward it.

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Erin Cummings Headshot
Erin Cummings Headshot

Erin Geddis Cummings, MSW, LCSW

Ellen L. Stovall Award — Patient Advocate Award

“Few individuals have transformed a field as profoundly as Erin Geddis Cummings transformed Hodgkin lymphoma survivorship.”

— Sophia K. Smith, PhD, MSW, FAOSW, Chair, Hodgkin’s International, and
Kevin C. Oeffinger, MD, FASCO, Duke Cancer Institute

Erin Geddis Cummings, MSW, LCSW, will be honored posthumously with the 2026 Ellen L. Stovall Patient Advocate Award. Erin lived more than 50 years with and beyond Hodgkin lymphoma and built that lived experience into a life’s work supporting long-term survivors around the world.

Erin Cummings meets with Rep. Mark DeSaulnier

Erin meets with Rep. Mark DeSaulnier, the Co-Chair of the Congressional Cancer Survivors Caucus during a Cancer Nation Hill Day.

In 2016, Erin co-founded Hodgkin’s International, a licensed clinical social worker’s answer to a gap she saw clearly: survivors who had been cured of Hodgkin lymphoma decades earlier were often left without guidance on the late effects of the treatments that saved their lives. Under her leadership, Hodgkin’s International grew into a global network of more than 800 survivors, delivering monthly newsletters, webinars, and evidence-based resources on late effects, screening, and long-term risk. In 2024, she brought that vision to life in person, organizing the first Hodgkin’s International Conference in Boston, where more than 100 survivors, clinicians, and researchers gathered to share best practices and elevate survivor and caregiver voices.

Erin’s collaborations reached across Europe, North America, and Australia, connecting oncologists, survivorship researchers, and advocacy organizations including Blood Cancer United, the Lymphoma Research Foundation, the University of Cincinnati Cancer Center, and Duke Cancer Center for Onco-Primary Care. She was also a longtime partner of Cancer Nation’s Cancer Policy and Advocacy Training (CPAT) program, where her work helped bring the specialized needs of long-term survivors into policy and research conversations at the national level.

Erin died on February 24, 2026, from stomach cancer complicated by the long-term effects of the treatment she received as a child. She was 68. The community she built at Hodgkin’s International continues to carry her vision forward, connecting survivors and caregivers to the information, research, and quality care she spent her life fighting to make available to every long-term survivor. Read our memorial for Erin here.

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Bradley Zebrack headshot
Bradley Zebrack headshot

Bradley J. Zebrack, PhD, MSW, MPH

Ellen L. Stovall Award — Health Care Professional Award

“Brad’s pioneering contributions to the field of AYA oncology and the psychosocial needs of this patient group represent a major innovation in the delivery of patient-centered care.”

— Patricia A. Ganz, MD, and Barbara Hoffman, JD,
Co-Founders, National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship

Bradley J. Zebrack, PhD, MSW, MPH, is a nationally recognized researcher, educator, and oncology social worker who has spent more than 25 years advancing the field of cancer survivorship. His research has shaped how the field understands quality of life, health disparities, supportive care, and the distinct needs of adolescents and young adults with cancer. He is a professor at the University of Michigan School of Social Work and one of the founding figures of adolescent and young adult (AYA) psychosocial oncology as a field of research.

Brad’s connection to Cancer Nation runs deep. Diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma in 1985 at age 25, he turned to the newly-founded NCCS (now Cancer Nation) for support and gave back almost immediately. In 1988, he and his then-fiancée Joanne Kelleher rode bicycles 11,000 miles around the perimeter of the United States over the course of a year, meeting with survivors, oncologists, nurses, social workers, and hospital administrators to advocate for medical and psychosocial support for people during and after cancer treatment, a novel concept at the time.

From left to right: Brad Zebrack and Joann Kelleher talk with Dr. Richard Karl at Moffitt Cancer Center, Tampa Florida, 1988.

The campaign raised more than $10,000 for NCCS and carried its message to communities across the country in the pre-internet era. Brad went on to serve on the NCCS Board of Directors from 1993 to 1998 and consulted on NCCS’s 1996 report, Imperatives for Quality Cancer Care: Access, Advocacy, Action and Accountability.

Brad earned his PhD in social work from the University of Michigan in 1999. During a postdoctoral fellowship with Patricia Ganz at UCLA, he developed quality-of-life questionnaires designed specifically for long-term cancer survivors and, later, for young adult survivors, tools now used widely across the field.

He has authored more than 170 peer-reviewed publications and 31 book chapters, mentored roughly 50 trainees, and holds fellowships with the American Psychosocial Oncology Society, the Society for Social Work and Research, and the Association of Oncology Social Work. His recent honors include the Rogel Scholar in Cancer Health Impact award from the University of Michigan Rogel Cancer Center (2025 to 2028), the Ruth McCorkle Excellence in Research Mentorship Award (2022), and the Archie Bleyer AYA Trailblazer Award (2025).

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Ellen L. Stovall

About the Ellen L. Stovall Awards

The Stovall Award is given annually to two individuals or organizations — one health care professional* and one patient advocate or advocacy organization — whose commitment to innovations in patient-centered cancer care helps deliver better outcomes and a higher quality of life for those living with and beyond cancer. Cancer Nation created the Stovall Award in honor of Ellen Stovall, our longtime CEO who passed away in 2016 due to cardiac complications from her cancer treatment.

Learn more about the award and past honorees »

Read the 2026 Announcement »

*Health care professional award co-presented by the American Society of Clinical Oncology.

a text logo that reads THE MARCH Forward AWARD | Honoring those who move cancer care forward.

About the March Forward Award

The newly-created March Forward Award recognizes individuals whose leadership, investment, or advocacy has fundamentally changed how our nation researches, treats, or cares for people with cancer. Its name comes straight out of our own history: the 1998 March on Washington, and a belief that has guided us for 40 years.

Progress in cancer care requires us to continue marching forward, demanding the federal investment in research and improvements in care delivery. This award honors the people who refuse to wait. They create the momentum, build the institutions, advance the ideas, and move the rest of us with them.

Read the 2026 Announcement »

40th Anniversary Gala Sponsors

Presenting

Monumental Sports & Entertainment
The Skoll Group

Gold

ASCO LN CMYK 800x206
George Washington University
merck logo
Phrma logo newer 1

Silver

Bronze

Eisai

Friends

Beveridge & Diamond, PC