Through the years, The Board of Visitors has strengthened existing services and programs at Children’s National as well as helped create the foundation of transformative research and healthcare through our Major Gifts program. Major Gift funding is not allotted on an annual basis. Instead, Major Gifts are on an “as needed basis” as requested by the hospital or when “earned surplus” accumulates in our bank account and is initiated by our board.
An overview of the process: Once our Executive Committee has identified an earned surplus of funds exceeding our annual grants program and other financial commitments, our BOV President appoints a BOV member to Chair a Major Gifts Committee. This Chair works with the hospital and foundation leadership to identify areas of need that align with our mission and our proposed funding financial range. In some instances, the Hospital has identified an urgent need and reached out to The Board of Visitors for funding. Regardless of the initiating source, The Major Gifts Chair works with her committee of BOV members to prudently review the submitted proposals and conduct thorough interviews. Once the proposal(s) have been carefully vetted, the Major Gifts Committee presents the proposal(s) for a BOV member vote at a monthly meeting.
Long before our Board coined the program “Major Gifts, (first cited in 2005),” the BOV has been giving significant amounts of critical funding to Children’s National.