ALM Fighting 'Lost' Ancient Disease.

Surviving for almost 100 years with a mission against a disease that most people think doesn't exist anymore, the American Leprosy Missions (ALM), Inc. of Greenville, S.C., is now finding renewed attention, contributions and redirection to its basic mission.

ALM is the winner of the Association of Fundraising Professionals 2001 Award for Excellence in Fundraising, selected from among more than a dozen organizations in the United States.

ALM is evolving its mission with a program that is code-named "Leprosy Plus," by identifying new diseases related or similar to leprosy, such as the Buruli ulcer. This is the flesh-eating, bacteria-borne disease that has recently made world-wide headlines.

"Buruli ulcer is life threatening with no cure known," said Robert Hobbs, chief development officer of ALM. "There is only the removal of tissue by surgery to combat this disease, where 70 percent of those infected are children. This is our first year, but it could become a significant part of our medical outreach."

Hobbs said that while it might be hard for ALM to change its traditional name to cover its broader new mission, the name change idea may come up sooner or later at a future board meeting.

The last few years have been good for fundraising. "We almost doubled our public contributions over a four-year period of time," said Hobbs. As cited by the award, public contributions in 1999 were $5.67 million compared to $3.27 million in 1994. Program grants increased from $2 million in 1994 to $3.6 million in 1999. ALM added 46,852 new donors in that same period of time.

The year 2000 saw a further increase to $5.97 million in public contributions. And, Hobbs is setting an ambitious $7 million goal for 2001.

ALM also entered into an agreement with Americus, Ga.-based Habitat for Humanity International to build homes in the third world countries for people affected by leprosy.

"When I came to AIM in 1996 as part of a new management team, there had been a downward spiral in public contributions due to varied changes in leadership, which resulted in the need for a new comprehensive approach to development," said Hobbs. "At that time, we referred to our cause as the 'forgotten disease,' and therefore it was important to reeducate people that leprosy was still a public health issue in many countries."

There are 700,000 new cases of leprosy diagnosed annually, 70 percent of which are in the poorer sections of India. Leprosy, a degenerative disease, is caused by airborne bacteria, much like tuberculosis, and though not preventable, is curable.

"It never really was a public health issue in the U.S. and Europe, but the World Health Organization has set the year 2005 for what they are calling for the elimination of leprosy -- a reduction to one case per 10,000 in the endemic countries," said Hobbs.