Letter from Leadership

This year, we build on our 45 years of experience to expand our mission beyond the walls of the House through programming both virtually and in person throughout New York City’s five boroughs. In locating our family rooms in hospitals in partnership with NYC Health + Hospitals, the largest public health system in the nation, we align with and help lead the broader national Ronald McDonald House Charities expansion strategy. The Cabrini foundation gift of $1,150,000 in 2019 and 2021 allowed us to begin outreach to public hospitals within New York’s five boroughs helped us emerge from the pandemic, while many houses were closing, stronger than ever, with prudent reserves and a renewed commitment to health equity. In widening our service populations to those in NYC’s safety net hospitals who are Medicaid eligible and even more culturally diverse, we extend our reach exponentially while deepening our model of care to meet the needs of more vulnerable families with children in medical crisis.

Within the house, thanks to a generous gift from the Berger sisters, we made important changes to the lower level including a renovation to the playroom, allowing for more space and light, proximity to the dining area, centralizing the communal nature of our work within the 73rd street House. Beyond the House, we opened our second hospital-based family room at NYC Health + Hospitals/Elmhurst. Located near the Neonatal Intensive Care, the Family Room at Elmhurst provides caregivers a comforting space close to their children’s bedsides for respite and regeneration with refreshments, personal care products, entertainment, creative activities as well as practical services such as access to laundry and mail delivery.

A significant gift of 1.05 million dollars from RBC Foundation USA, the charitable arm of RBC Capital Markets, will create infrastructure for a Ronald McDonald House New York Health Equity Data Center for children and families. The RBC grant will help centralize our data systems, significantly extend our reach, work more seamlessly with our healthcare partners to consistently improve our programs, supporting thousands of children and families facing hospitalization and serious illness. 2023’s expanding digital footprint will help us cultivate new strategic partners and our expanded mission will help recruit a broader corps of volunteers and a more diverse donor base, seeding our reserves with regular incremental income from digital fundraising. By cultivating and engaging smaller donors we hope to build a broader spectrum of major gifts over time.

With capacity to integrate records from our healthcare partners, we can better screen families to find out where they need help, and access additional resources through expanded strategic partnerships. Such new partnerships include Healthfirst, which gives access to 27 community-based organizations offering services that address crisis-driven hardships, as well as those longer-term needs that are socially determined. As we improve services that extended our digital footprint, we are able to more accurately measure our impact and quantify how our model contributes to improved health outcomes and reduced costs.

The transformational nature of gifts such as these enable our going beyond pilot and demonstration projects to take our rightful place as a full partner within the healthcare continuum, disseminating results of our model, contributing to critical research with academic and community-based partners at the nexus of hospitality and healthcare, offering cutting edge workforce training on family-centered care for families with children in medical crisis.

Ruth C. Browne, SD President and CEO Ronald McDonald House New York

Jim Flanagan Chairman of the Board/Treasurer Ronald McDonald House New York