Our Managing Partner’s Profile
About Ben
The Wall Street Journal is widely credited with coining a favorite Everidge word - “philanthropreneur.” An article published in the Journal observed that philanthropreneurs are "hard-charging business people who revel in the fulfillment that comes from building a better world."
Actively living that philosophy of serving the greater good, which has been the thread throughout his career, Everidge is Managing Partner and Executive Senior Fellow of Cannon & Caius LLC, a strategic collaborations practice specializing in transformational academics, citizenship, media, and philanthropy through mission-critical public-private-philanthropic partnership initiatives.
In Academics
While working on Capitol Hill, Everidge earned his undergraduate degree from American University in International Studies and a Master’s degree in American Government from Georgetown University. While at Georgetown, Everidge was named a prestigious University Fellow.
Everidge is today leading academic studies on the impact transformational generosity is having on segments of American society as Executive Senior Fellow of the Generosity Institute, an emerging collaborative partner-centered think tank devoted to celebrating the impact generosity is now having on $59 trillion in generational wealth that is migrating from one generation to the next through university level studies and instruction.
In 2017, Everidge published his first political novel, the story of a fictional 47th President of the United States who struggles to provide ethical security to our citizens at home and abroad after a nuclear explosion in Pakistan that inspires a series of retaliatory strikes in the United States and around the globe. Hoya: The Watchmen Waketh is available for sale on Amazon. A sequel, Hoya Saxa: Honor Among Grey Ghosts, is forthcoming.
Ben’s first nonfiction book, Rescuing Nicholas: The Secret Mission to Save the Tsar, was released in 2018. It is also available for sale on Amazon. An update to that story is in progress and will also be forthcoming soon.
Everidge is completing his third book, Generosity: Giving, Getting & Managing Philanthropy Preeminently. Publication is scheduled for late 2024.
In Citizenship
Ben Everidge had his first professional brush with politics and policy more than 45 years ago as a young campaign aide to a then-state representative who would win a seat in the U.S. House. He later became state insurance commissioner, then the senior United States Senator from Florida, and now the 14th NASA Administrator for the Biden White House, Bill Nelson.
Everidge’s congressional staff experience would include over ten years working for Nelson, the Senate Budget Committee Chairman and eventual late Florida Governor Lawton Chiles, and the House Committee on Energy and Commerce and an influential subcommittee chaired by the late James J. Florio of New Jersey, who himself would later serve as Governor of his great state. Ben also worked on over two dozen highly competitive campaigns for the U.S. Senate, U.S. House, and Governor, 70%-plus % of which won their elections.
In public and later private life, Everidge worked on issues related to education, space, healthcare, sports, international trade, defense, veterans, oversight, and investigations, among others. He first encountered the Program Related Investment concept founded by Benjamin Franklin, which he strongly promotes today, for example, as a young congressional aide.
While on Congressional staff, Everidge worked on many landmark pieces of legislation, including mergers and acquisitions on Wall Street, the Olympics, Superfund, Amtrak and Conrail funding, and other significant environmental pieces of legislation, which became public law.
In Media
During his years on Capitol Hill, Everidge placed a large number of political stories in the media as press secretary to an influential subcommittee of Congress, including The Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, The New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Associated Press, United Press International, Fortune, Forbes, Business Week, ABC Nightly News, NBC Today Show and NBC Evening News, CBS News, CNN, and more.
Experienced in national political media relations, Everidge worked on two national memorial projects and earned an International Golden Quill Award with his creative public relations team for a groundbreaking speech following a national tragedy.
Today, Ben is the Publisher & Editor-in-Chief of Thomas: A Modern American Political Mediazine, profiling the 2024 election seasons and everything in between. Everidge’s team is also producing a documentary on his political history book, Hutson Project: The Secret Mission to Save the Tsar and Nicholas Lived: History Had Eyes.
In Philanthropy
In this role, Everidge advises high—and ultra-high-net-worth clients through their trusted advisors on how best to leverage their philanthropic strategies through their private and public portfolios, sophisticated gifting tools, and intelligent collaborative strategies.
A highly experienced Program-Related Investment (PRIs), Social Impact Fund, public-private-philanthropic partnerships, and principal gift fundraiser, Everidge is known for his professional and personal perseverance. He has raised and managed large sums for transformational projects, including a personal best $75 million donation from a single donor and an $82 million private family foundation grant. He has extensive experience with family offices, private family foundations, and corporate citizenship projects.
Over his career, Everidge has raised hundreds of millions of dollars personally and has managed millions more in direct philanthropic wealth.
Successes Along The Way
Everidge’s transformational successes include, among others:
Leading the fundraising team that helped secure the then-single most significant gift ever for a community hospital from a single family, according to the Advisory Board in Washington, D.C. The $75 million gift was donated to help design and build one of the safest teaching hospitals in America for a major academic medical center partnership that included numerous for-profit and not-for-profit partners.
As Director of Development for the then-largest hospital in America, according to the American Hospital Association (based on inpatient admissions), Everidge secured several record seven-figure gifts to redevelop one of the hospital’s seven principal campuses and expand its regionally leading cancer and children’s programs formerly known as the Walt Disney (named for Walt & Lillian Disney) Memorial Cancer Institute.
As a World Cup Soccer USA consultant in 1994, Everidge assisted the Los Angeles Organizing Committee with government relations work in Washington, D.C., and among the nine venues, especially Orlando, Florida. Reporting to a former Hermann Award-winning professional player, Everidge helped the Orlando venue secure, among other benefits, an $8 million transportation grant despite an earthquake that hit Los Angeles that year, diverting transportation dollars to that community. Orlando was voted the best venue by the Atlanta Constitution and one of World Cup Soccer's most profitable venues.
Serving as the Chief Executive Officer of the Astronauts Memorial Foundation at NASA’s John F. Kennedy Space Center, the first privately endowed national monument. Signed into law by then-President George H.W. Bush in May 1991, the Memorial includes an award-winning monument and a living tribute to America’s fallen astronauts, the Center for Space Science Education, which today houses NASA’s space education program using space as a motivator in teaching math, science, history, and geography in K-12 classrooms across the country. The Challenger License Plate Program funded the monument. This voluntary $15 donation has raised over $90 million since 1986 and spawned a nationwide cottage industry in specialty license plates supporting charitable causes. Everidge’s speech for the memorial groundbreaking ceremony earned an International Golden Quill Award. Everidge also served as press secretary and national spokesperson for the U.S. House co-sponsors for the iconic Korean War Memorial in Washington, DC, on the National Mall between the Jefferson and Lincoln Memorials.
Leading the Florida Space Research Foundation, which was funded by proceeds from the first-in-the-nation vanity license plate program, Everidge helped the research foundation create the first commercial spaceport authority under the leadership of the state’s then-commerce secretary and later governor. The Foundation was also instrumental in helping secure the first million-dollar space grant consortium funding from NASA for Florida’s then-ten public and private universities, which had, until that point, never worked together as a cohesive unit on space-related science.
Highly Motivated
He was diagnosed with Level 5 Malignant Melanoma in 2003, which metastasized to his lung in 2005, elevating him to a Stage IV cancer patient. Everidge and his family endured numerous surgeries, a year of Interferon treatments, and another yearlong clinical trial, which has left him free of the cancer that changed his life forever 20 years ago.
As a result, Everidge today is a uniquely knowledgeable, dedicated, and motivated healthcare fundraiser and executive who believes passionately in the power of genetics, predictive health, regenerative medicine, and spiritual well-being. He is also a committed policy advocate for more collaborative cancer research and treatment options, as well as more comprehensive education initiatives and beneficial survivor programs using the human genome for markers in targeting cancer treatments and prevention programs.
Today
Everidge and his wife, Cannon & Caius business partner Nan, make their home in Central Florida and have four children: Emily, Greyson, Nia & Zachary. There are no grandchildren yet; Ben and Nan have two grand puppies: Panther (an American bully belonging to their son, Zack) and Goose (a Golden Retriever belonging to their daughter, Emily).
On April 26th, Ben entered the 2024 race for the United States Senate from Florida as an Independent. The election is November 5th.
Ben can be reached by email at beneveridge@cannonandcaiususa.com. Give him a shout. He loves a great conversation about generosity, politics, media, academics, and fundraising!