Wolf-Gordon's Gift of Hope Reaches $1.8 Million - Continues to be DIFFA's Largest Donor

New York, NY — June 14, 2019 | Wolf-Gordon’s Gift of Hope pro­gram has reached the $1.8 mil­lion mark in con­tri­bu­tions to Design Indus­tries Foun­da­tion Fight­ing AIDS (DIF­FA), which funds direct care and pre­ven­ta­tive edu­ca­tion for peo­ple liv­ing with HIV/AIDS. Pro­pelled by the AIDS epi­dem­ic, CEO of Wolf-Gor­don, Rick Wolf, start­ed Gift of Hope in the ear­ly 1990’s, allow­ing design­ers to spec­i­fy prod­ucts using Gift of Hope num­bers, which direct a per­cent­age of rev­enues to DIFFA. 

“When I first found out about DIF­FA, I thought it was the per­fect foun­da­tion to bring our char­i­ta­ble dona­tions to a nation­al lev­el; not only is it a major part of the design indus­try, but it plays a huge role in edu­ca­tion and pre­ven­tion for HIV/​AIDs. We are proud of Gift of Hope’s growth, and that our con­tri­bu­tions con­tin­ue to sup­port DIF­FA in all of their endeav­ors.” — Rick Wolf, Wolf-Gor­don CEO

Wolf-Gor­don is a com­mit­ted sup­port­er of DIF­FA and is the organization’s largest donor. Accord­ing to the long-time for­mer Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of DIF­FA, David Shep­pard, after see­ing the mag­ni­tude of con­tri­bu­tions from Wolf Gor­don’s Gift of Hope pro­gram, it was used it as a mod­el for Spec­i­fy with Care® —now one of DIF­FA’s most suc­cess­ful fundrais­ing programs. 

“By cre­ative­ly merg­ing care with com­merce, Wolf-Gor­don set an endur­ing exam­ple of how indus­try can win while help­ing oth­ers. The lives of thou­sands of peo­ple liv­ing with AIDS have been impact­ed by Rick Wolf’s com­pas­sion, vision and com­mit­ment.” — David Shep­pard, For­mer Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of DIF­FA (1995−2012)

The com­pa­ny also col­lab­o­rat­ed with design­ers Ali Tayar and Ale­jan­dro Cabr­era to cre­ate provoca­tive table envi­ron­ments at the foundation’s ​“Din­ing by Design” event for sev­er­al years. In 2013, Wolf’s efforts were acknowl­edged when he was award­ed DIFFA’s ​“Unsung Hero Award”. He was a board mem­ber for many years and today, is a part of DIFFA’s Finan­cial Com­mit­tee, over­sees the growth of Gift of Hope at Wolf-Gor­don, and con­tin­ues to spon­sor and invest his time at the foundation’s annu­al events.