S p e c i a l F e a t u r e
Connection to the Cause
People often choose an organization to
donate to because they feel a personal
connection. This is very true for Barb
Hestrin, who chose to include BC Women's
Hospital Foundation in her will. She
worked at BC Women's Hospital in various
departments from 1992 to 2008, irst
as a nurse clinician and eventually as a
senior administrative oficer. "My time
at Women's was incredibly rewarding,
and I always appreciated the fact that
the leadership of the hospital has a very
proactive philosophy around promoting
women's health and well-being, so that
just it for me. It's an organization that I
really value so that set the scene for what
happened after I retired."
In 2008, Hestrin was asked to join
the board of the BC Women's Hospital
Foundation. She also began working with
the BC Women's Hospital Auxiliary, which
fundraises for the hospital. She sees irst-
hand the impact of the generous gifts that
people make. While donations to various
programs are tremendously appreciated,
she notes that undesignated gifts are
almost more valuable. "The reason I say
that is that the costs of doing fundraising
are escalating all the time, and you can't
do it without staff and resources. So all
the donations I make are undesignated
because I really believe we need that
infrastructure."
Personal connection is the biggest
reason people give to the BC Cancer
Foundation, which provides funding for
research at the BC Cancer Agency. In the
past iscal year, the Foundation raised $50
million, about 12 per cent of which came
from legacy gifts. "What really motivates
that, is personal experience with cancer,"
says Erik Dierks, VP of development. "One
in three of us in B.C. will hear the terrifying
words 'you have cancer' at some point in
our lives. So when people are touched by
cancer, they leave those generous bequests
to us to really change the story."
The cancer story is changing because
of crucial breakthroughs made by
researchers at the BC Cancer Agency. With
BC Cancer Foundation funding, the agency
is now carrying out the second phase of
a clinical study of the Personalized Onco-
Genomics Program, in which researchers use
genomic sequencing to learn more about a
particular tumour and provide doctors with
new knowledge and treatment options. For
some patients, this program has already
provided life-altering treatments. "The real
goal," says Dierks, "is to make this program a
standard of clinical care so that every person
who is diagnosed with cancer would have
that level of detail about their speciic cancer,
and treatment decisions would be based on
that knowledge."
Research on the causes and treatment
of prostate cancer is one of the key pillars
