With the Help of Local Donors, a Children’s Health Campaign is Edging Closer to a Big Goal

DONOr steve lund at the launch of Intermountain Health’s primary promise fundraising campaign. photo courtesy of intermountain health.

Intermountain Health is closing in on a $600 million fundraising goal, described by the health system as “the most ambitious philanthropic initiative ever undertaken” to improve children’s health in Utah and the surrounding region. Launched in January 2020, the Primary Promise campaign has raised an impressive $464 million to date, with help from dedicated donors like Steve Lund.

Lund’s experience has taught him how important children’s health facilities are. “Children’s hospitals are where the battle of life and death goes on hour to hour,” he said. “Every time the door swings open, there is somebody coming in, having the worst day of their lives. And this destination, this landing place [is where] those worst days are processed and often turned around to some of the most glorious days of somebody's life. That's a very special place.” 

Like so many healthcare donors, Lund and his wife, Kalleen, have a personal connection to Intermountain Primary Children’s Hospital. When their son, Tanner, was nine, he developed severe pain in his hip. The local hospital couldn’t treat him, so he was sent to Primary Children’s, where doctors discovered a cancerous tumor. Tanner was diagnosed with neuroblastoma, a rare but serious childhood cancer. The boy received extensive treatment that his father believes gave him three additional years, but he died when he was 12 years old.

Lund says the medical team that treated Tanner did all they could in the face of long odds. “You have to admire that,” he said. “We went on this journey together with the Primary Children's folks and celebrated together and mourned together. We love these people.” 

Intermountain Health (formerly Intermountain Healthcare) started out as a string of hospitals run by the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints. In 1975, LDS gave the hospitals, including Primary Children’s, to the community, creating Intermountain Healthcare as an independent, nonprofit corporation. Today, Intermountain Health treats patients across a 400,000-square-mile region in the states of Utah, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Nevada and Alaska, and includes 33 hospitals, and clinicians at about 385 clinics. An affiliated foundation raises funds for hospital projects, research, and otherwise supports the mission of the health system.

The Lunds are modest about their gift in support of Primary Promise, but according to a hospital spokesperson, it is in the seven-figure range. Intermountain Health is optimistic that other community members will recognize the value of an enhanced, holistic children’s health system. Now that the campaign has reached more than halfway to $600 million (which it considers a minimum goal), Intermountain is turning to the public to help Primary Promise succeed, inviting “widespread public participation to move this historic effort across the finish line,” according to the announcement. 

“Our message is that this is the most significant investment in the delivery of healthcare to children in this state and in the Intermountain West in this generation,” said David Flood, president of the Intermountain Foundation.

“We will never say no to those guys”

When, a few years after Tanner’s death, the Intermountain Health Foundation asked Steve Lund to become a co-chair of the Primary Promise campaign, he was sure his wife, Kalleen, wouldn’t want him to do it. The couple had recently agreed that they had too many commitments.

“We had decided that I shouldn’t serve on any more boards or take on anything else until I completed some of the things I was doing,” said Lund, who is cofounder and executive board chair of Nu Skin Enterprises. “So when they asked me, I was sure she’d say, ‘Darn it, we have to say no to important things.’ Instead she said, ‘Well, of course, you’ll take that one. We will never say no to those guys.’”

Brad and Megan Bonham also have a personal reason for supporting Primary Promise. The Bonham’s infant son, Grant, was diagnosed in utero with a rare kidney condition; he died just 33 hours after he was born. The Bonhams provided $15 million to help create the first highly specialized fetal care center in the region. Named after the Bonhams’ son, the new Grant Scott Bonham Fetal Center will have the capacity to conduct complex fetal surgeries, advances that allow physicians to address anomalies before birth. The center will also allow Intermountain to expand its cancer treatment facilities and its research capacity.

Before the new fetal center was built, women with complex, pregnancy-related issues had to travel elsewhere for treatment. “We could send women out of state, but many women didn’t want to leave — either because they had other children or they didn’t have the ability, financially, to travel that far,” said Katy Welkie, the CEO of Primary Children’s Hospital. “We want to be able to provide those services here at home for the broader Intermountain West community. This is a high-growth area, and there are lots and lots of babies, so there is a high need.” 

Healthcare without borders

Primary Promise will also allow Intermountain to expand its child health services throughout the region. Construction is already underway on a second Primary Children’s hospital in Lehi, Utah, thanks to Gail Miller, a Utah businesswoman and philanthropist who was an early Primary Promise supporter with a gift of $50 million. Miller is one of four co-chairs of the campaign, along with Lund, and a member of the Intermountain Health board. 

Pediatric care will also be enhanced throughout the vast Intermountain region through a network of clinics and expanded telehealth services. “If you live in Billings, Montana, for example, there should be a level of care in pediatrics that we can provide you right there,” Welkie said. “So part of our goal is to keep kids in Billings — whether it's by supporting clinics with pediatric subspecialists who go there, or by providing telehealth services so kids can be treated right there in the community.” 

Welkie emphasized that the facility is the only children’s hospital within a 400,000 mile radius. “To get the same level of care, you have to turn to Denver children's hospital to our east, to the California children's hospitals or Seattle Children's to the west, down to Phoenix Children's to the south. We have a sense of obligation as the safety net for this large geographic area.”

In addition, Primary Promise funds will allow Intermountain to expand its mental and behavioral health services, as well as its Healthy Kids program. Healthy Kids targets adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), which can include abuse and neglect, poverty, environmental hazards and food insecurity. ACEs create toxic stress and can have lifelong physical and mental health implications (see IP’s report on the Healthy Kids initiative).

“We’re looking at the programs that keep kids healthy,” Welkie said. “Screening programs, for example. And we’re opening a food pantry here to help kids from a nutrition standpoint. Making sure parents have good information about how to talk to their teenagers is another example. It’s really upstream work.”

Rallying point

As co-chair of the Primary Promise campaign, Steve Lund spends a lot of time talking to people about the initiative and why it’s important. He says it can be hard to convince people that a major health facility actually needs their money.

“People will often say, ‘Well, wait a minute. This is a very successful organization, nonprofit or not, they've got vast holdings and resources. It doesn't look to me like they need our money.’ And so you start from there and explain that by helping Intermountain meet their capital expenditure needs, it leaves them with a balance sheet that allows them to treat people who can't afford care.”

In 2020, Primary Children’s Hospital provided $14 million in charitable dollars to cover 11,867 patient visits, for example.

When David Flood, Intermountain Foundation’s president, talks to potential funders, he makes an even broader argument in terms of impact. “Our message is that this is a unique opportunity to touch every point along the socioeconomic spectrum — every race, religion, social circumstance will be touched by this initiative. And so your finite philanthropic dollar will go that much further.”

Flood says the response to the expanded public campaign has been encouraging so far. “People are excited, we have folks who are having home receptions for us and wanting to invite their friends and their families,” he said. 

Primary Promise was unveiled in January, 2020, as the pandemic hit, “probably the worst possible time to launch a campaign like this,” Flood said. At first, he and his colleagues wondered if they were going to have to scrap the project altogether, because there were so many competing health needs. Instead, he thinks the crisis reminded people of the value of the healthcare system and its critical role.

“As the smoke cleared, it intensified our appetite to move forward because kids are going to need these services more than ever,” he said. “I think that message coming out of the smoke excited some people in our community. People were looking for something positive, and they could come and be part of this and feel good about something. So what started out as probably the worst time to have a campaign has evolved into a moment in time where we've become a rallying point.”