CHOC Children’s Foundation, the fundraising entity for Children’s Hospital of Orange County, sets the bar high.
“Goal is to become not A, it’s to become THE best pediatric health system in the country,” said Doug Corbin, who as the foundation’s chief development officer oversees a 56-member fundraising team.
“We have gone from being just a regional hospital to being a destination hospital in the U.S., though most of our donors are still (in) Orange County, and most of our patients.”
Those donors, attracted to some bold initiatives, provided a healthy, financial booster-shot to CHOC, which reported a 12% increase in revenue to $47.7 million, good for No. 8 on the Business Journal’s annual list of nonprofits (see list, page 25).
CHOC Children’s, which opened in Orange in 1964, has 334 licensed beds. It also has 54 beds at a “hospital-within-a-hospital” at Mission Hospital in Mission Viejo.
Corbin points to some recent moves within pediatric health, which have attracted some big-money support and he hopes will move CHOC toward that lofty goal of pre-eminence in pediatric health services.
“The issue that we had the courage to jump out in front of is the pediatric, mental health issue,” Corbin said. “Effectively addressing pediatric mental health requires much more than just giving a child a pill.”
On Nov. 20, the hospital announced a “transformational gift” of an undisclosed amount from the Cherese Mari Laulhere Foundation to expand its pediatric mental health system of care. The foundation, named after Cherese Mari Laulhere, who died in a tragic bus accident at age 21 in India in 1996, had previously donated $5 million in 2017.
The mental health center, which will have the Cherese Mari Laulhere name, has an out-patient facility, as well as 18 in-patient bed for kids in the most extreme situations.
“When we set out on this journey, we knew it wasn’t going to be a moneymaker. We just knew it was the right thing to do,” Corbin said.
Second Floor
The largest gift in the 55-year history of CHOC came from Iowa émigré William Holmes, who made his fortune in the hot tub business, with Anaheim-based L.A. Spas.
The Newport Beach resident donated $27 million in 2013 after a three-year courtship that started with lunch at Mimi’s Café. Holmes didn’t have a pre-connection to CHOC, but his philanthropic passion was children. Best of all perhaps the gift came with no restrictions on what children’s health needs it could serve. CHOC’s seven-story Bill Holmes Tower opened in 2013, and may have opened the floodgates for other large gifts from the OC business community.
Last year, former Pacific Investment Management Co. Chief Executive Bill Thompson and his wife, Nancy Thompson, chose CHOC for their third autism center for clinical care and research with a $10 million gift to be paid over four years.
The Thompson Autism Center at CHOC Children’s is set to open in February in a 20,000-square-foot, former bank building near the hospital, and is an extension of CHOC’s Pediatric Mental Health Initiative.
Corbin’s team set out right away to deliver.
“We learned in visiting other autism centers, don’t try to do everything, aim for where the gaps are,” said Madeline Hall, a senior director at CHOC Foundation.
“One of those gaps will be early diagnosis of autism of very young children.”
This was a good year for seven-figure donations at CHOC:
• $5 million from San Diego-based Credit Unions for Kids, a consortium on the nation’s credit unions that support children’s hospitals, to name the CHOC Children’s Foundation Community Engagement Center.
• $2 million from Annette and Richard Symons for an ordained Catholic ministry at CHOC.
• $2 million from Newport Beach residents Dan and Vivien Hyman for the Mental Health Inpatient Center.
Corbin is also looking for small donors, estimating his base exceeds 60,000.
“My goal is to not be dependent on ‘transformational gifts,’” Corbin said. “It’s to connect the hospital, our pediatric-health system, to the community, to bring them in for tours, do the blocking and tackling—so we’re not dependent on the outlier gift.”
Whether it’s a group or someone with “transformational-gift” potential, the CHOC roadshow always includes the second floor.
“Our child life department—it’s a happy place,” Corbin said. “Kids come here, they’ll go through chemotherapy treatment and it’s time to be discharged and they don’t want to go home.”
Corbin also points up CHOC’s annual fundraisers that have attracted singers such as Kelly Clarkson and Lady Antebellum.
“Our Gala and our CHOC Walk are two of the best events in the country—our Gala had over 900 people,” Corbin noted. “Having A-List performers attract that kind of crowd, and this year we had a mission of pediatric mental health.”
The Gala brings in millions every February, underwriters paying up to $100,000 for tables include Disneyland Resort, Anaheim Ducks, South Coast Plaza and Corona del Mar-based Daftarian Group Real Estate.
Savvy Appeal
Corbin, who joined CHOC early last year, has run his own planned giving consultancy, Paragon Charitable Services Group, and worked as a fundraiser for United Western Medical Centers in Santa Ana and as vice chancellor for estate and gift planning at his alma mater, Pepperdine University in Malibu.
His team carries another local healthcare “institution” in its fundraising quiver.
CHOC Chief Executive Kimberly Chavalas Cripe, a member of the Business Journal’s 50 most influential, has been one of the longest-running, highest profile executives in Orange County.
“I’ve been doing this for thirty years. I’ve never worked with an individual who has the patience, intelligence and strategic ability as she does,” Corbin said.
Cripe, who became CHOC’s president and CEO in 1997, also serves on the board of CHOC Children’s Foundation. The hospital and its fundraising arm are separated with distinct boards of directors.
“It allows us to recruit more donors; our board is another distinct group that’s connected. Hospital board is about governance, ours is about fundraising.”
