93% of every dollar SSBTR raises goes directly to brain tumor research. Because the organization is run by student volunteers, overhead stays low and the checks stay large.
Five institutions receive the funds: Barrow Neurological Institute, Phoenix Children's Hospital, the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen), the National Brain Tumor Society, and University of Arizona Medical Research.
Each April, students present the checks at the award ceremony in person, in front of the people who raised the money and the researchers who will spend it.