The Best Medicine

How Morgan Stanley turned laughter into life-saving care.

Every Year, a Group of Dedicated Supporters From Morgan Stanley Gathers to Laugh It up for Newyork-Presbyterian’s Kids.

Though the mood is light at the Gotham Comedy Club as comedians—and occasionally, comedy giants like Jerry Seinfeld—perform their bits onstage, there is some serious fundraising going on.

This year alone, over four nights, the Morgan Stanley Comedy Night and Morgan Stanley Online Auction raised a record-breaking $1.1 million to support the NewYork-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital of the Children’s Hospital of New York.

The event started in 2010. The brainchild of longtime Morgan Stanley employee Drew Ertman (pictured, at the Gotham Comedy Club), Morgan Stanley Comedy Night is an extension of the firm’s decades-long philanthropic relationship with NYP.

In 2017, Morgan Stanley employee Aly Kerr added an online auction to the mix, helping to raise the massive funding needed to build a new neurological neonatal intensive care unit that will deliver life-saving care to preterm infants diagnosed with congenital neuro-logical conditions.

NewYork-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital cares for the youngest and most vulnerable patients, including many who have been turned away from hospitals that consider their cases too complex. Sixty percent are uninsured or on Medicaid in a neighborhood where one in five families lives below the poverty line.

Thanks to philanthropic support—especially from longtime partners like Morgan Stanley and Drew Ertman and Aly Kerr—the Hospital continues to fulfill its mission of providing best-in-class care, regardless of patients’ ability to pay.