NTAF History

NTAF - The Leader in Fundraising Assistance and Support for Transplant and Catastrophic Injury
In 1983, Dr. Jack Kolff and wife, Patricia, B.S.N., created the NHATF (National Heart Assist and Transplant Fund), after Dr. Kolff established the heart transplant program at Temple University Hospital in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (the first in the Delaware Valley). At that time, heart transplantation was still considered experimental in nature and insurance coverage was not always available for the procedure. Many patients were being denied transplants because they lacked financial means.

The Kolffs had a vision– a vision that all people should be able to receive life-saving organ transplants without regard to their financial situations.  Patricia Kolff, the executive director from 1985 through September 2003, said:

         "We realized that there was no foundation, corporation or government program able to grant NTAF (then NHATF) the necessary funding for such an undertaking, so we resorted to the unique American belief in 'helping thy neighbor'.  We combined the spirit of community involvement and desire to help others with appropriate grassroots fundraising guidance and assurance of fiscal accountability in the collection, management and disbursement of such funds."

In 1995, the NHATF Board approved the inclusion of all solid organs to the patient population served. NHATF became National Transplant Assistance Fund (NTAF).

NTAF is the largest financial assistance organization in the United States for transplants, providing almost twice as much assistance as the next largest service organization in Fiscal Year 2008.

In 2000, NTAF expanded its area of service to include individuals with catastrophic injury (spinal cord and traumatic brain) with the introduction of its Catastrophic Injury (CI) Program.

Since 2000, the CI Program has:

• Opened more than 430 fundraising campaigns for individuals who have sustained a catastrophic injury;
• Helped raise more than $13.6 million in community funds for individuals with catastrophic injury;
• Provided information and referrals to more than 890 CI individuals and their families. (As of Fiscal Year 2009)

In 2008, NTAF was recognized for its CI Program with an Award of Continuing Excellence from the Inglis Foundation.

With more than 26 years of dedicated service, NTAF has helped more than 4,000 patients, their families and communities nationwide raise $64 million for uninsured medical expenses. Together we are changing lives.

View NTAF's 25th anniversary edition of New Start News, NTAF's bi-annual newsletter, for a 25-year timeline of NTAF's history.