More than 3,000 City of Hope employees gathered in November across system clinical sites and virtually for the relaunch of the Hope Starts With Us employee giving program.
During the festivities, employees learned how they can make a greater impact on City of Hope’s mission by leading a Walk for Hope team, enrolling in payroll deduction, making a one-time gift or volunteering their time and energy.
“Giving starts with us. It starts with family,” said Kristin Bertell, Chief Philanthropy Officer, during the event at the City of Hope's Duarte campus. “All support, of any amount, adds to the universal impact for our one City of Hope. I am grateful so many employees have carried City of Hope’s spirit of philanthropy forward.”
The six live events at the clinical sites included music, free breakfast or lunch, information booths and opportunities to win new City of Hope merchandise. Employees participating virtually received a GrubHub credit and a live-tour video experience.
“Celebrating this day provides an opportunity to highlight the good deeds, the community and the common threads of kindness. But even more than that, it offers us the opportunity to be that source of kindness,” said Annette Walker, president of City of Hope Orange County.
The relaunch was a post-pandemic opportunity for City of Hope employees to come together across all the campuses to reconnect and re-engage with the organization’s mission. The events aimed to thank existing donors and to introduce and inspire new employee donors in an evolving national system that now includes sites in Chicago, Atlanta and Phoenix.
“It really does demonstrate again the commitment of each and every individual employee to the mission that we have,” said Kevin Tulipana, president of City of Hope Phoenix.
City of Hope has an ambitious vision for the future of cancer and diabetes care, and philanthropic gifts support the research and exceptional care in that vision.
“It’s an honor and quite humbling to know that I play a small part in the cancer care breakthroughs that occur on City of Hope’s campuses,” said Jonathan Watkins, President of City of Hope Atlanta.
Philanthropy is in City of Hope’s DNA. The organization began more than a century ago when donors and volunteers came together to provide dignity and care to tuberculosis patients with few financial resources.
City of Hope’s legacy of philanthropy produced one of the highest rates of employee donations in the nonprofit sector before the COVID pandemic.
Participation in Hope Starts With Us is voluntary.
Payroll deduction gifts by Translational Genomics Research Institute employees support TGen, and payroll deductions by all other City of Hope staff go to the HOPE Fund and are put to immediate use for City of Hope’s highest priorities, such as:
- Support services for patients
- Efforts to address health inequities in underrepresented communities
- Staff training
- Research and its speedy delivery to patients
- Purchasing the latest technology.
More than 80,000 donors contribute to City of Hope's annual giving program each year.