Throwing shade on St. Jude's?
Don't. Because, just don't.
If you’re a fundraising professional and read the Pro Publica Investigation into St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital and ended up scratching your head, you’re probably not alone. The Cliff Notes version is that Pro Publica accuses St. Jude’s of “hoarding billions” while “many of its families drain their savings” while their children receive treatment for cancer.
But what the article casually discounts to near zero is that St. Jude’s provides totally free care to children with cancer.
Yeah, you read that right: Totally freaking free.
And according to the NIH, the annual cost of treating childhood cancer (let’s use data available for acute childhood lymphocytic leukaemia) is about $103,250.
So in other words, treating just one child for cancer for one year is expensive AF.
But set aside those costs for a moment and marvel that a hospital exists in America that provides free care to children with cancer, made possible entirely through philanthropic donations.
And while it’s absurd that we don’t have a national system of medicine that obviates the need to rely on voluntary charitable support to save a dying child, at least St. Jude’s took the free-cancer-treatment-for-kids ball and took it to the dang house.
And that’s where this “investigation” goes off the rails: it takes gratuitous potshots at St. Jude’s nationwide fundraising efforts, going so far as suggesting that the Memphis-based organization siphons funds away from local hospitals to benefit patients from other parts of the country.
Bitch, please.
If you’re the VP of Advancement at a major cancer center in Los Angeles or San Francisco or San Diego or Seattle and you can’t outraise St. Jude’s in your own backyard, it’s because you’re either:
not committed to creating the right conditions for successful fundraising; or
have undercapitalized your advancement program; or
make a lousy case for support; or
provide services that are substandard or less highly valued than those at St. Jude’s
In short: If you can’t fundraise from donors in your own backyard for the same services offered someplace far away, first look in the mirror before whining about St. Jude’s.
And really: Let’s face it, free cancer treatment to kids is a gift worth making regardless of where you live.
p.s. In response to the Pro Publica article, St. Jude’s increased the travel benefits it offers for families, providing travel and meals to two parents instead of one, and will be covering regular trips to Memphis for siblings and other loved ones. Plus, they’re STILL curing kids of cancer.