By Julie Breckenkamp, Vice President, Corporate Partnerships and T.J. Johnson, MNM, CFRE, Vice President, Corporate Partnerships & Foundation Relations at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago Foundation

At our recent 2026 Children’s Miracle Network Partner Summit—hosted at Ace Hardware HQ in Chicago—we brought together corporate leaders representing nine partners who collectively raise more than $100 million annually for our network of hospitals: Walmart, Ace Hardware, Panda Express, Dairy Queen, Love’s, 7-Eleven, Speedway, Club Car Wash, NCASEF and Great Clips.

Throughout our discussions on where corporate fundraising is headed, four themes emerged:

• Fundraising must evolve with consumers and employees: Exploring AI, loyalty programs, digital experiences, employee platforms, workplace giving, and new approaches to point-of-sale fundraising.
• Partnership needs to extend beyond the campaign: Engaging more of the business—including leadership, volunteerism, marketing, vendors, and community engagement.
• Connecting the ask to a bigger story: Helping customers and retail employees better understand the real, critical challenges facing kids and families on their health and what their contributions make possible.
• Making it easier and more valuable to fundraise with CMN: Providing streamlined access to resources, actionable year-over-year data, best-practice sharing and structured peer-to-peer learning.

A vital highlight of our time together was hearing directly about the changing landscape of pediatric healthcare from our colleagues at Lurie Children’s Hospital—connecting corporate strategy directly to the real work happening across our hospital network.

CDO Best Practice: What Medical Progress Asks of a Children’s Hospital

Medical advances are helping more children survive serious conditions and live longer. For many families, that progress also brings years of specialized care and new questions about what comes next.  As new therapies and interventions change the outlook for many patients and families, children’s hospitals must bolster the support they provide both within the hospital and out in the community.

This was part of the focus of the recent Children’s Miracle Network Partner Summit – which provided an opportunity for corporate partners to better understand how children’s needs are changing and how their fundraising can help hospitals respond to the need. By bringing national corporate partners and hospital leaders together, CMN helped connect fundraising conversations with the realities hospitals face and the needs they are preparing to meet.

At the Summit, I had the privilege of moderating a conversation with two leaders at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago whose work reflects those needs. Dr. Marcelo Malakooti serves as our Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer. Mary Kate Daly serves as our Senior Vice President and Chief of Community Health and leads the Patrick M. Magoon Institute for Healthy Communities.  They helped us understand the shared responsibility we can call rally around: to plan and support the full course of a child’s health journey, beyond any single treatment or hospital stay.

Longer lives call for more connected care

As Dr. Malakooti highlighted in detail, growing complexity in care models can be a sign of exciting progress. Children who once might not have survived a serious condition may now need years of care from several specialists. Hospitals have the responsibility to help those specialists work together and support the family throughout the care continuum.  For a hospital, this means planning for the right people, place and programs.

The same need for connection extends across hospitals. Research networks and shared clinical practices allow children’s hospitals to learn from one another, particularly when caring for rare diseases or complex conditions. This shared learning allows progress in one place/children’s hospital to benefit children across the entire country.

Community partnerships bring care within reach

Children’s health is also shaped by the places where they live and learn, and by whether families can reach the services they need. That makes community health central to our collective mission.

At Lurie Children’s, the Magoon Institute represents the expertise and resources we can share with community organizations, schools, public agencies and other health systems. Our Community Health Needs Assessment helps identify local needs and guide that work. Community partners contribute knowledge of their neighborhoods and priorities that a hospital cannot supply on its own.

Philanthropy helps hospitals prepare and respond

Philanthropy gives hospitals an additional source of flexibility. Unrestricted gifts – support that is not designated for a particular program – help leaders respond amid uncertainty, as priorities change and while questions persist around insurance coverage and reimbursement. Philanthropy can also support research and pilot programs that may not yet have established funding.

As we look ahead, we should judge progress by how we are meeting the growing and comprehensive needs of children and families. That means planning for what a family will need after a successful treatment, and for what might help them access care better and sooner in the future. The work of a children’s hospital must keep pace with the lives children are now able to lead.

Tags:

• best practice
• corporate partners
• Partner Summit