Bear Necessities Pediatric Cancer Foundation

Bear Necessities Pediatric Cancer Foundation is a national organization founded in 1992 and has been actively contributing to children stricken with cancer. Bear Necessities' mission is to eliminate pediatric cancer and to provide hope and support to those who are touched by it. The foundation has two main programs: the Bear Hugs Program is designed to brighten the lives of pediatric cancer patients by granting special requests to them and to ease the burdens of the families through assistance with some of the immediate needs that they may be facing while fighting this physically, emotionally, and financially devastating disease. Each year the Bear Discoveries program awards medical research grants nationally, primarily to junior investigative researchers who make meaningful advancements and discoveries towards finding a cure and therapies for various types of pediatric cancer.

Our vision is a world without this devastating disease.

Goal One: In partnership with SamaraCare Counseling, we will mitigate the cost of therapy to pediatric cancer survivors, patients, and their immediate family to ensure any family in need receives support.

Goal Two: To offset the expense of higher education for families who have already faced extraordinary medical costs, we will provide scholarships for pediatric cancer patients, survivors, and their siblings.

Goal Three: We will focus on community needs regarding Board recruitment and expand Board membership, ensuring members strengthen our diversity, thought leadership, skills, advocacy, and fundraising efforts.

With a “small but mighty” team of six full-time employees, we understand the need to invest in leadership development to strengthen our mission. We believe people who make a difference in the world by pursuing a nonprofit career have a right to fair compensation and life-changing educational opportunities. Recent examples include partnering with a consulting firm to educate staff on strategic planning, development best practices, and IDEA principles. Two staff members also recently attended a six-week virtual training session on effective community relations, and our organization’s leaders have worked with an executive coach to continue to serve our children and families as effectively as possible.

Like so many other organizations, the past year was incredibly challenging. During the pandemic, we lost staff and revenue and needed to change our approach to programming. However, we learned a lot since March 2020 and are currently operating from a position of strength. To effectively support children and families during the pandemic, we pivoted our approach to programming beginning in March 2020, operating in a way that was safe for all involved. We worked closely with our partnering hospitals to ensure families continued to receive “Bear Hugs” throughout the pandemic. Although we never stopped serving our children and families, our virtual and remote format made us slower in delivering the care they needed, which impacted the total dollars spent on programming. However, thanks to our collaboration with families and healthcare partners, we served nearly 400 families in 2021 and have begun to resume in-person experiences for those who can participate safely. Regarding fundraising, historically we have relied on in-person fundraising events to raise money to support our programs. When COVID-19 prevented us from engaging in our typical fundraising activities, we needed to launch new strategies and tactics to maintain our revenue. To overcome this challenge, we hired a development consulting firm in July 2020 to support our new fundraising efforts. We are proud that we sustained operations and raised significant revenue through one-on-one individual donor solicitations, direct mail appeals, and virtual events. While our fundraising pivot was challenging, it also presented several opportunities. Diversifying our revenue streams and focusing on ways to increase support from individual and institutional funders beyond events will help us in the long-term, even now when we can return to hosting in-person fundraisers.