Why Support CHA: Your FAQs Answered
Your Questions Answered!
How many people are served by CHA annually?
Grant reports from CHA-funded services and programs indicate more than 10,000 patients and families are served each year.
Is CHA a part of Children’s Minnesota?
No, although we are proud to support care at Children’s Minnesota and we work closely with their foundation, CHA is an independent non-profit and an entirely separate entity. To keep overhead costs low with our small staff, we do contract some services such as IT and payroll from them. However, our operations, decisions, and grantmaking are our own and separate from the hospital.
What’s the difference between CHA and the hospital’s foundation?
Like the hospital’s foundation, all programs CHA currently supports are at Children’s Minnesota. However, unlike a hospital foundation whose fundraising efforts support the entire hospital system, Children’s Hospital Association makes annual pledges of financial support and community stewardship to select, specialized services and programs providing essential, holistic support to pediatric patients and families.
Why don’t you run the programs you fund?
By supporting services and programs at Children's Minnesota, we’re able to guarantee the projects proposed in the grants we award have the infrastructure they need to be successful and maximize the amount of your donation that goes directly to services and programming.
How does the CHA grantmaking process work?
Hospital staff and leaders are invited to apply to our grantmaking program on an annual basis. Proposals are evaluated by a committee made up of staff and board members and scored against a rubric. Proposals are scored based on their alignment with our mission and programmatic interests, how their funding will be allocated, the projected impact, evaluation methods, and cost efficiency. CHA awards funds to these programs through pledges which are paid out over the next calendar year.
Why do you provide support through grants?
Awarded grants annually allow us to provide agile financial support to the services and programs with the greatest need and greatest impact and ensures we remain engaged and informed as fiduciary stakeholders.
Do you provide support outside of grants?
Yes, we also provide support through community stewardship opportunities to make sure CHA-funded programs have the supplies they need and to promote the impact of these programs locally.
What’s holistic healthcare?
Holistic healthcare refers to models, services, and programs of care that provide support to the entire person—physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. There is a tremendous amount of research showing that emotional regulation, opportunities for play, community support, patient/caregiver education, and family support are vital to the health and wellbeing of children regardless of medical circumstance. We believe providing care for the whole child and support for the whole family leads to the best outcomes within and outside of the hospital walls.
What’s a wrap-around service?
A wrap-around service is a program within the medical setting that supports aspects of health, wellness, and livelihood that aren’t addressed by or can’t be fully taken care of by medicine alone.
Most of our healthcare reflects the pathogenic model of medicine, providing treatment for an identified problem once it arises. However, what can be treated by a doctor only accounts for 20% of our health. Social determinants of health—factors of our environment, conditions of our communities, and access to support and resources—are responsible for the remaining 80% of our health. The social determinants of health are what wrap-around services work to address. These include things like ensuring children have opportunities to play to help them process their experiences and individualized support and education to make sure patients and caregivers understand the requirements and functions of certain medicines and pieces of medical equipment.
How is your board involved?
CHA’s has a governing Board of Directors responsible for strategic planning and fiduciary oversight. We’re proud that 100% of our board members are CHA donors.
Why should I give to CHA if I don’t have or like kids?
Whether or not you have children in your life, we are all impacted by how the families in our community are doing. Our community, culture, workforce, and economy rely on adults having the access and capacity to participate. Supporting pediatric healthcare stabilizes families and reduces the risk of cycles of poverty, debt, and trauma. Additionally, taking care of the pediatric population protects our broader community by reducing the strain on our collective health systems.
I don’t have money to give but I still want to support. What can I do?
All gifts, even gifts of a few dollars, help us achieve our mission each year. If a financial gift isn’t in your capacity, there are still lots of ways you can support CHA.
- Amplify our work on social media or host a social media fundraiser on our behalf
- Join a guild or volunteer with us
- Sign up for ShopRaise to give CHA a percentage of purchases you make at no extra cost to you
What’s a guild?
CHA guilds are groups of volunteers who come together to share diverse experiences and talents in the interest of a shared passion: better care for the children in our community. Each CHA guild hosts their own fundraising events and initiatives each year. You’re welcome to join and existing guild or create one of your own!
Have a question not answered here? Reach out to CHA Development Associate Madeline Geier at Madeline.Geier@ChildrensMN.org and we'll get you an answer as quickly as possible.
