WI Cook Foundation Inc

Donations to Cook Children's Health Foundation allow us to care for our families when and how they need us. Sometimes that's by providing new technology or equipment, funding research trials, helping a family with prescription medication costs or by giving a parent a clean change of clothes during an unexpected stay. Our Health Foundation helps connect the dots between those who want to help and the needs of our patients. Many gifts fund a number of vital programs each year, these three areas highlight perfectly how the support we receive from our communities helps create the magical experiences for which Cook Children's is known. Funding Care Close to Home Cook Children's believes all children deserve access to health care, no matter their zip code. Seven community-based Neighborhood Health Centers (NHC) give families a home for primary medical care close to where they live, work and attend school. The free-standing pediatric clinics are located in low income neighborhoods identified as having inadequate access to primary care for children. Roughly 91% of NHC patients are Medicaid beneficiaries. Neighborhood Health Centers are staffed with doctors and other clinical support staff that provide at-risk children high-quality, comprehensive and culturally sensitive medical services from birth through their teen years, including well-child exams, vaccines, sick visits, nutrition, counseling, speech language intake services, and behavioral health evaluations. If a child has a chronic illness, the NHC provides a medical home that will coordinate complex care among other Cook Children's providers. If not for the NHCs, many of these families would turn to the emergency department (ED) for primary care at a cost much higher than a typical clinic visit. Neighborhood Health Centers are helping kids all across Cook Children's service area lead healthier, more productive lives. Each year the clinics lose a combined $10.4 million due to the high number of Medicaid beneficiaries. Philanthropic funds through the Health Foundation help fill these financial gaps so that Cook Children's can deliver on its Promise to improve the well-being of every child regardless of their family's ability to pay. In FY24, our generous donors met the growing need for additional NHCs. Because of their generosity, two more NHCs will be added to the Cook Children's roster for a total of nine. The Health Foundation secured over $7 million for the construction and programmatic costs for Las Vegas Trail NHC and Manhattan NHC. Those funds also support clinical operations in the existing seven centers. The generosity of Health Foundation donors helps sustain NHC services and gives all children the health care they deserve. Supporting New Discoveries Cook Children's is home to many of the best and brightest minds in pediatric health care. In addition to patient care, a number of our physicians conduct research that leads to new discoveries in medicine and advancements in patient care. The Endowed Chair program recognizes the great work of our innovative physicians who are advancing pediatric care along with Cook Children's research reputation. It allows physicians to be compensated for their time as they develop programs, participate in clinical research, write for national publications, make presentations on a national level and further elevate the regional, national and global prominence of their work. More importantly, it connects Cook Children's patients with groundbreaking research, novel therapies and state-of-the-art technologies that could significantly impact their care and health outcomes. In FY24, the Health Foundation secured a $3.5 million gift to purchase capital equipment for Neuro-Oncology Endowed Chair Focused Ultrasound research. Securing this gift ensures our physicians are poised to provide significant neuro-oncology research for the health and well-being of not only our patients, but children all across the globe. As Cook Children's anticipates increased funding needs in these two aforementioned areas of NHCs and Endowed Chairs, it is critical that we continue to solicit diversified gifts involving capital, programmatic and endowed gifts to these funding areas. Supporting Cook Children's Experience For decades Cook Children's has been at the forefront of providing holistic services to families such as Case Management, Child Life and Pastoral Care. Case Management in particular, helps provide a family's basic needs. When a child has an unexpected medical emergency or is experiencing a prolonged illness or treatment it can disrupt the family's ability to meet their basic needs. Meals, housing, utility bills - those things essential in life can leave a family vulnerable when faced with unexpected medical bills or costly prescriptions. Coupled with the fact that being present with your sick child means being away from work for days, weeks, even months at a time affecting a family's income. This is where our donor-funded case management comes in by helping to provide for families' basic needs so they can focus on the healing of their child. The Foundation continues to support these non-revenue generating areas through its efforts such as annual giving programs, third party events, Children's Miracle Network Hospitals, corporate, and mid-level giving. In FY24 alone, the Health Foundation raised over $2.3 million to help meet the needs of our patient families in these essential areas. It is these above-and-beyond-healthcare programs that make Cook Children's a magical and stellar institution treating the whole child, the whole family.