$35 million donation to Children's Minnesota believed to be the largest of its kind in the state
Children's Minnesota will receive a $35 million gift from billionaire philanthropist Tom Golisano and will rename its Minneapolis campus in his honor, the health system announced Thursday.
The gift is believed to be the largest of its kind for pediatric health in Minnesota. It will pay for a 10-year effort to expand access to precision medicine, which matches treatment to a child's genetic and molecular profile.
Children's Minnesota says those approaches, including gene and cell therapies and regenerative medicine, are reshaping what pediatric care can do. They can help prevent or cure diseases once considered lifelong, and can move some treatment out of the hospital and into outpatient care.
Hospital leaders said the money could help disrupt the path of sickle cell disease and potentially cure it in some patients, and could delay the onset of type 1 diabetes and insulin dependence. Families would be able to get those treatments in Minnesota.
Emily Chapman, president and CEO of Children's Minnesota, said the gift is an investment in children and families facing some of the most complex health problems, and that access to promising therapies close to home matters as medicine advances.
"My hope is that no family, no matter where they live or what they can afford, has to travel far or wonder if their child will get the best care available," Golisano said. He said that as a father and grandfather, he has seen what a good children's hospital nearby means to a family in a difficult moment.
The Minneapolis campus will be known as the Children's Minnesota Golisano Campus, and the health system will join the Golisano Children's Alliance, a national network of 21 children's hospitals that Golisano started last year to share research and expertise. Children's Minnesota will remain an independent, freestanding nonprofit and the only health system in the state devoted exclusively to children. The Minneapolis campus will receive the $35 million over five years.
Golisano founded Paychex, the Rochester, New York, payroll and human resources company. His giving to education, hospitals and other causes tops $1 billion, and children's hospitals across the country carry his name. He started the Golisano Foundation in 1985 to support people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
Children's Minnesota has been operating for more than 100 years and offers more than 100 pediatric specialties across two hospitals, nine primary care clinics and 15 rehabilitation and specialty care sites in the Twin Cities metro.
