SAN FRANCISCO—The City of Hope's Northern California Real Estate Council has named Ron Zeff, CEO of Carmel Partners, as the 2015 Spirit of Life Award winner. The honor is given to an industry leader who has “demonstrated outstanding business and altruistic achievement,” according to the non-profit.

“Ron has been very active in the philanthropy community for many years, and his company is incredibly generous not only to the City of Hope but to many organizations,” Heather Olinto, VP of the Western Region at City of Hope, tells GlobeSt.com. “Ron has built an amazing company from the ground up, and we try to look at leaders within the real estate community that are not only philanthropic, but who have also made a significant impact within the real estate community. We think that Ron encompasses both of those ideals perfectly.”

Zeff will receive the Spirit of Life Award on March 7 at the Marriott Marquis in San Francisco, where more than 800 real estate and construction professionals will come to witness the honor. This is one of the largest events hosted by the City of Hope's Northern California Real Estate Council since it began bestowing the award in 1986. The event is expected to earn $1 million for the charity—the largest amount ever raised. By comparison, last year's event raised $850,000.

Zeff focuses on US multifamily investments, and, through his company, has acquired and developed 33,322 apartments units with a combined market value of $9.8 billion. He founded the company in 1996 after working at Trammel Crow Residential. He has an MBA degree from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and a bachelor's degree from the University of California at Berkeley.

The City of Hope will use the monumental funds earned from the event to continue its research efforts. “The City of Hope's mission is to speed recovery from the bench to the bedside, and we specialize in taking research and turning it into new and novel therapies,” says Olinto. “The money raised by the real estate and construction council serves as seed money or venture capital. We give it to the most promising research projects that we have right now to keep them going and to keep them finding cures and discoveries for cancer and diabetes.”