Neil Wallack stood at the corner of Hereford and Boylston Street, the final turn of the Boston Marathon. Three of his runners had come through, 12 to go. A loud boom shattered Wallack’s concentration. Runners fell to their knees, smoke filled the air, and people began to scream. Another boom. Wallack realized they were bombs.
He ran to the Marriott at Copley Place, where he’d rented a suite for marathon weekend. As a coach for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) charity team, Wallack wanted his runners to have a place to celebrate after the race. But the mood in 2013 was somber: The bombs killed three people and injured hundreds. Fortunately, each of the 15 JDRF runners returned unharmed. Every one of them came back to race in 2014, and they were joined by 15 new runners, along with Wallack. “There was no way I wasn’t going to,” he says.
Like most people who run for a cause, Wallack has a personal motivation. In 2001, his oldest son, Harris, then 5 years old, was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. Wallack became determined to help find better treatments, if not a cure. His work in private equity gave him access to friends with means, but he wanted to do more than ask for money within his network. He’d run his first Boston in 1992, while working on his MBA at Harvard Business School, and figured he’d combine his love of the sport with his passion for fundraising.
Since he started running for JDRF in 2008, Wallack has personally raised $1.2 million for the organization, which in the past 40 years has contributed $2 billion to research new technologies to monitor and regulate insulin levels. Since 2012, he’s helped coach around 100 athletes to finish the Boston Marathon. To date, they have collectively raised over $2 million.
Unlike many fundraisers who use social media to gain supporters—and likes—Wallack is loath to talk about it. “I never do anything publicly at all,” he says, noting that he even hesitated to respond to our request for an interview. After discussing it with his wife, Lisa, he decided to answer because “I’m very proud of what we do,” he says, and “I think it’s important to lead by example.”
The Wallacks’ methods are relatively grassroots. Each year, they send an email to several hundred friends, colleagues, and relatives to announce that Neil is, again, raising funds for JDRF. Many have donated every year, and Wallack says some have become increasingly generous over time as they’ve seen the impact of JDRF. When previous donors decline to chip in again, the Wallacks send another round of direct, personalized emails. “We are private people,” he says. “But we are not shy.”
Wallack compares finding a cure for type 1 diabetes to the moon landing. John F. Kennedy knew it would take a lot of hard work, but he was determined. “That’s where we are now and compared to 22 years ago when our son was diagnosed,” Wallack says. And each year that he can help to fund one scientist, or one experiment, he knows he’s helping to find “that last little bit” to solve the problem. “That’s damn exciting.”
Wallack ran his 17th Boston last April. He raised $135,000, making him the top fundraiser in the field by a wide margin, but the race itself was a struggle. Around mile 8, he suffered a minor tear in his calf and debated dropping out. But then he thought about his athletes—particularly those who have diabetes themselves—and how, apart from 2013, every single one who has started a Boston Marathon has finished. “I’m like, you know what? I’m gonna keep walking.”
Wallack crossed the line in 4:31, almost an hour and a half off his best time of 3:06. But it felt even more special than when he got his PR, he says, because it wasn’t about him. Back at the Marriott, he felt proud “just being there in the room, being able to say, I fought through this for you guys.”
David Alm is a Brooklyn-based writer and editor. His writing has appeared in GQ, Mother Jones, and Runner’s World, among other outlets.
