Hilton Foundation Awards $2M to Non-Profit Task Force Battling Diseases Linked to Poverty

AGOURA HILLS, CA — The Agoura Hills-based Conrad N. Hilton Foundation has selected The Task Force for Global Health as the recipient of this year's Hilton Humanitarian Prize, the foundation announced Tuesday.

The Task Force focuses on addressing large-scale health problems primarily affecting people living in extreme poverty and currently reaches hundreds of millions of people in 151 countries.

“The Task Force is about compassion, collaboration, and smart solutions,” Hilton Foundation president and CEO Peter Laugharn said. “The organization and its partners roll up their sleeves and solve massive global health problems, and they do it without fanfare. This is an organization that, with its partners, is on track to help eliminate three diseases in the next decade. That is something we should all celebrate.”

The Task Force will receive $2 million in unrestricted funding and join 20 other distinguished nonprofit organizations that have received this Prize during the last two decades.

“We are deeply humbled and honored to receive the 2016 Hilton Humanitarian Prize, and to join the ranks of prestigious organizations that have helped alleviate human suffering,” said David Ross, ScD, President and CEO of The Task Force.

The Task Force was founded in 1984 by Dr. William H. Foege, a renowned epidemiologist and former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director who is credited with developing the strategy that led to the eradication of smallpox.