St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital – ALSAC

St. Jude Children's Research Hospital holds a deeply personal place in my heart. It's truly heartbreaking to think of children facing life-threatening illnesses like cancer, their futures seemingly stolen from them. Knowing that such young lives are impacted so profoundly is incredibly difficult.

However, St. Jude offers a beacon of hope in this dark reality. The fact that they provide cutting-edge treatment to children with cancer, completely free of charge to their families, is nothing short of extraordinary. In today's world, where everything seems to come with a cost, this selfless dedication is truly remarkable. It speaks volumes about their commitment to their mission: finding cures and saving children.

The financial burden of fighting cancer can be devastating, and St. Jude's commitment to removing that burden allows families to focus solely on their child's well-being. This is an invaluable gift.

Because of their unwavering dedication to children and their families, and their unique approach to providing free care, St. Jude has consistently been one of the first organizations I choose to support with my donations. They are a true testament to the power of compassion and the unwavering pursuit of a better future for children everywhere.

I love giving to charities that help children with cancer. They do amazing work helping children who have cancer. St. Judes does good job helping children who are dealing with this horrible diseases.

St. Jude is the most wonderful place around! My daughter was diagnosed with a myxopapillary ependymoma, a type of spinal tumor, in Feb 2018. After making 1 phone call to the nurse liaison, my daughter was accepted as a patient & her surgery was scheduled for 5 days later. The 10 hour long surgery, followed by a full week of inpatient care, was performed at LeBonheur Children’s Hospital, a mile away from St. Jude in Memphis. This was followed by 6 weeks of proton therapy radiation, plus numerous scans, doctors’ appointments, medications, etc. Since completing radiation, we have made the 9 1/2 hour trip every 3 months from middle Georgia to Memphis, Tennessee, for follow-up MRIs & checkups. My family has NEVER received any sort of bill or request for payment for ANYTHING. Not only has all of my daughter’s medical care been provided at no cost, but all of our travel expenses, food, housing, even Christmas gifts for all 3 of my children have been provided when she had a checkup right before Christmas one year! If all of this wasn’t gracious plenty, every single employee at St. Jude, from security to doctors, are incredibly caring, compassionate, helpful people that go out of their way to make patients & families as comfortable as possible under the circumstances. Oh & also, my daughter will always be a St. Jude patient; she can receive all of her care at no cost for the rest of her life! St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital is truly a magnificent & special place, and I will forever sing their praises!

Too much money spent on Corporate and advertising. That money could be put to better use elsewhere. Children ARE turned away, diagnosed as hopeless. Read the reviews!
Why are there empty rooms?
Why are more buildings going up if they're not filling the ones they have?
If a family or individual can only make the $19. a month contribution, why are they sent expensive mailings and "Gifts" asking for more?
If CEO and COO were at all interested in funding for the Hospital, they would travel in a little less luxury and opulence.
My Will and Trust are now going elsewhere.

Ok they help sick children, maybe on campus they have about 70ish rooms for treatment.

They recently finished a 412 million research building so that they could collaborate better.
Now they are building more office buildings and more parking garages while 70% of the buildings are empty.

The leadership receiving multimillion dollars paychecks, money get wasted on expensive unused electronics, majority of the employees is being underpaid, overworked, has to participate in volunteering activities to make the organization look good (look at us we try help everyone)

With a yearly revenue 2+ billion and having billions in bank account and nowadays also cryptocurrency.

Expensive lunches being provided for personnel, every month there is like a themed party or gifts are provided to have people moved to a new system.

With all the money they spend on these things and the outrageous salaries for the c suite… they seem to waste a lot of money instead of using it to help more sick children and maybe focus on also common deceases instead of just rare 0.01% illnesses

My experience is wonderful! I’m planning on working there, I get mail from St. Jude and I donate 20$ every month! I’m saving up money in a box and to get 100$! I know that will be a while, but it will be worth it also, I got a St. Jude Shirt! So my experience so far is wonderful!

I took time to do research and find the best charity for the amount of money I was able to donate. I was making a monthly donation to St. Judes until this morning.

Immediately after starting the monthly withdrawal from my bank account i began receiving mailings requesting more money. I called and asked for the mailings to stop. I was told this could take several weeks. It didn't. I called again and asked to have it stop. I also told the individual that if these didn't stop I would stop donating to St. Jude. Immediately after that, i began receiving phone calls asking for more money. I called a third time and asked that both malings and phone calls stop. They didn't. Worse yet, I was told by the person who answered that my previous requests were not logged and my account was not flagged.

This morning I called and asked for a supervisor. While she was polite and apologetic, it doesn't correct the obvious management problem they have with individuals doing their job. She assured me that my account had been flagged the last time and wasn't sure why I was still receiving calls.

It is sad to think that, while my monthly donations were small, I was not respected as a person to have my requests honored. They were already receiving money. Why is it being wasted on me, a donor, to donate more? It makes me wonder that if this department is so poorly managed, how many other departments are also poorly managed?

Wonderful charity! I’ve visited several times and the work being done here with research incredible and level of care is amazing!

So many people are concerned with CEO salaries but why is it ok to make 5 to 10 times as much to make shareholders of a company money? Shouldn’t we prioritize this work instead and get the best and brightest?

Also, people seem to site charity Navigator as how they learned of these salaries but ignore the fact that Charity Navigator gives ALSAC/St. Jude their top rating, 4 stars. You have to look at the whole picture (which charity navigator does) to rate the nonprofit effectively.

My grandson was diagnosed with AAL at age 3. St. Jude was 4 hours away but it was where he needed to be! Today he is 13 and is healthy! God has blessed our family and St.Jude’s mission is wonderful!

My giving story hits close to home, in May of 2016 after moving from Jacksonville, Florida to upstate South Carolina, patches of dry red scaley patches of skin started to appear on the arms, neck, and hands of my 3 year old nephew Joey.

My sister-in-law immediately took him to his family doctor where he was referred directly to a Dermatologist. At the dermatologist the patches of dry, red scaley skin were tested and some of them were frozen off.

Well about a week later the rest result were in, and the diagnosis was Squamous Cell Carcinoma, we were shocked. A few more test were done to see how far the Cancer had progressed at this point. When those test came back to say that the Cancer had spread to the reticular dermis, which isn't the best of news, definitely not the news that we wanted to receive.

Automatically our worries set in... All of the cost that come along with with cancer, so I started research. My mother brought to my attention that she and my father were loyal patrons to the St. Jude Children's research Hospital, so I began to research and call to figure out how I was going to get St. Jude to accept my baby nephew Joseph. Little did we all know that it was a very simple process and he was accepted immediately.

From the very first day St. Jude welcomed my nephew and our family with open and loving arms. To this day St. Jude hasn't asked for any payment, they have taken care of everything to make sure that our family is taken care of as a whole.

From now until the day I did u will do whatever to donate whatever I can to help St. Jude Children's reseach Hospital.

This is #MyGivingStory. Please never hesitate to donate to help the children. The smallest amount helps.

Thank you St. Jude!!

I have been cautious about donating money to so called non-profits since I pulled The Red Cross's tax forms and got quite a shock. Yet when I pulled and went thru all of St Jude's, it all was legit. No elaborate parties or fund raisers that cost millions of dollars. I am going to donate to St Jude's because it looks like they do not waste money but use it as it is intended. Thank you St Judes. P Mayfield

I used to give money to St Jude sporadically since some months my funds are tighter than others, but I am going to find a different organization to donate to. I recently called St Jude to have them mail me a form so I could donate. A month went by and I never received anything. So I called back again and same thing, never received anything. Now 2 months have gone by and I call a 3rd time and explain to a woman the situation, and with no apology proceeds to ignore what I just explained to her and ask if I can have 19 dollars a month deducted from my account as if she didn't even care to listen to a thing I said. I finally had enough and told her nevermind and hung up. I then sent an email to the H.R. department letting someone know what's been going on. I have never gotten a response or even a call back. I guess unless you are only wanting to have monthly donations deducted from your bank account St. Jude does not want to deal with you. It's sad because I have never had this problem with St. Jude in years past. Sounds like they are getting a little too big for their britches.

I called to pledge a monthly donation to St Jude's and right before the call ended, I was asked to pledge a single donation first ($50/$100 +)......I declined since I would be making donations each and every month. Immediately after the $ was deducted from my checking account, I received a form asking for a donation ($25/$50/+) along with personal return address labels. If I wanted mailing address labels, I would purchase them and would not want St. Jude's to spend my donation dollars on unnecessary items & postage. I have cancelled my monthly pledge and will decide how to proceed with getting my donation directly to who it should benefit........the children.

St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital is a very responsible and respectable institution. I have been making donations and not fundraising with the organization and their personnel that I have had the pleasure to interact with have been extremely responsive and transparent with all the inquiries that I presented to them. The company pays extra attention to ensure that every donor is well noticed and has a very strong system of donor retention. I appreciate St. Jude's quality event planning and will be a long time participant in their events!

I'm not sure why people are so outraged by the salaries of the executives. Do we not want out best and brightest working for our children? Why are teachers at the low end of the professional salaries scale; juvenile court judges and social workers low on the Wage scale too. I want people to WANT to work with and help our children and I want them to be qualified professionals who are compensated accordingly.

I have donated many times in the past, but did not know they were Lebanese or Syrian affiliated. Also did not know their CEO made such big bucks.

As the father of a patient at St. Jude, I wanted to weigh in on their fundraising. First, and foremost, I want to thank anyone who has ever donated to St. Jude. It’s a big organization that has relied on small gifts from millions of people over the last 50 years. And because of those gifts, St. Jude has better been able to understand and treat my son’s type of rare cancer. I’ve been on both sides of the coin, and giving to St. Jude is very compelling. It is an easy decision and it feels good to help children fight for their lives. But when you become the beneficiary of those gifts, it is hard to describe how overwhelming the feeling of gratitude is. I vividly remember driving onto their campus for the first time, how relieved my wife and I were to know that we were at the place that knew more about childhood cancer than any other place in the world. As such, before I say anything about the fundraising process at St. Jude, I want to say thank you to everyone who has supported their work. It is because of so many peoples’ generosity that St. Jude gives families like ours that peace-of-mind.

Officially, ALSAC is the fundraising organization responsible for raising 75 percent of the money that funds St. Jude each day. It is a very big organization with two priorities. First, a big part of what ALSAC does is telling the world about childhood cancer. It is not a cause that is championed by religious groups, business, or government. There is no big advocacy group. There are small groups doing things around the world, usually related to families who have been affected by childhood cancer, but nothing significant. That leaves ALSAC as the organization that keeps the cause in the public’s attention through their various media outlets, all which cost money. The second part of what they do is raise money for research and treatment of these diseases. ALSAC employees something like 1,500 people and hosts hundreds of events each year for donors all over the country. They rely on a lot of volunteer hours as well. ALSAC uses an external agency to benchmark their costs to make sure they are in-line with peer organizations. While they have to keep their costs reasonable, they also need to attract talented professionals. It is my experience that those talented professionals will work at ALSAC for less than they can make in the private sector. But we need them to have good people because what they do is significant.

As it relates to their CEO pay, remember that they list two CEOs. One is the CEO of ALSAC, Rick Shadyac, who makes a little bit less than the peer average even though he is an unbelievable leader for that organization and left a lucrative career in the private sector. We know him personally. We met him the first week we were at the hospital. He remembered my son’s name after the first time he met him. He knows all of the children it seems. He is visibly anguished when a child loses their battle, which unfortunately still happens. And he is a tireless advocate for them. He is the leader in the cause of fighting childhood cancer and we need him in that spot. There is also a CEO of the hospital, St. Jude, whose salary is reported. That has been Dr. William Evans, although he is in the process of retiring as CEO. Dr. Evans is a renowned scientist who St. Jude has been lucky to have.

My family is so grateful that people have given their money to ALSAC/St. Jude for the past 50 years because it has given my son a better chance in the fight for his life. We are grateful for the people at ALSAC and St. Jude who have dedicated their careers to fighting childhood cancer. As a donor, I don’t want our gifts to be wasted. And as the father of a patient at St. Jude, I assure you that they are not.

As a parent of a child who has been under the care of St. Jude since March of 2012, I hope my perspective is useful. St. Jude is leading the way the world understands, treats and defeats childhood cancer. Everything St. Jude does is centered on finding cures and saving children. When my son was diagnosed with Leukemia at the age of 12, there was no doubt in my mind where I needed to take him to be cured. Families like mine never receive a bill from St. Jude for treatment, travel, housing and food. This allows for 100% focus on curing my child. St. Jude freely shares the breakthroughs it makes, and every child saved at St. Jude means doctors and scientists worldwide can use that knowledge to save thousands more children.

Whether a hospital is a for profit facility or a not for profit one, it takes talented leaders to operate them. To continue to do it’s lifesaving work, St. Jude must hire and retain the best doctors, researchers, scientists, nurses and fundraising leaders. The skills and experience of executive leaders are in very high demand across the country and internationally. In my opinion, it’s important that compensation for these positions be reasonable, fair and benchmarked to their peers. I think if you look at the compensation packages for the Leaders of St. Jude and ALSAC, you will find that they are actually in many cases below market. I think that’s a responsible way to operate and it allows St. Jude to offer fair wages and still attract top talent.

St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital is and always has been my favorite charity. My dad was friends with Danny Thomas the founder. They used to talk on the phone sometimes on the weekend about helping out, donating our time to help children in need.

I remember meeting Danny Thomas, he was doing a stand up show, I was just a kid so that was probably 45 years ago. Danny was larger than life, smoking a cigar and genuinely a kind man. He was getting ready to go on stage, people were all around him but he stopped everything to play with me and my younger brothers, insisted we sit on his lap and gave us all big hugs, he didn't have to do that, how many in today's world would do that?

I Thank God that my children are all healthy and I Thank God that St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital exists, just in case we needed, you needed, anyone of us needed their services, they are there.

I also read the negative comments about pay scales, I will continue to donate for the rest of my life. I don't care if they are putting the money in a pile and burning it, they are helping children and no amount of money can replace our children.

As i read the negative reviews, i notice that most of it is about money. I guess you are all right, no one needs that much money. However, the need is never a part of the value now is it. If each of you were paid on your " need" at your job, would it be less or more? Highly educated , sharp professionals are hired to administrate this wonderful organization and yes they cost a lot but maybe, just maybe they are worth it and maybe their professionalism and talent is what filters down to that staff member who takes care of someone you know or love one day. Now, would you choose a cheaper version? Look at both sides and watch what you say on public boards. Writing bad reviews may make you feel better about things, but it hurts more than you think to those you point and wag your finger at.

My son is a St. Jude patient. He was diagnosed in Sep. 2003 with a baseball-sized malignant brain tumor, 3 days after his 9th birthday. They performed emergency surgery hours after the MRI that revealed the tumor, it was big and the swelling was so severe he was lapsing into a coma. We live in San Diego and I never imagined us traveling to Memphis for treatment, we sought opinions at CHLA, UCSF, Rady Children's in San Diego, and Children's Nat'l Medical Center in DC.

We ended up taking him to Memphis because at that time, they had a treatment available nowhere else in the U.S. that involved use of a lower dose of radiation to his brain and a treatment duration of 8 months instead of 2+ years that was producing higher survival rates than anything we could get elsewhere. The lower dose of radiation was the clincher, all radiation amounts to brain damage, and is particularly devastating to the developing brains of young children. We had great insurance coverage and did not choose St. Jude because of the financial benefits.

My son is 19 now and in a couple of months he will be a 10-year survivor of this tumor. Simply put, St. Jude saved his life and with better quality than he could have gotten anywhere else in the world at that time. He just graduated high school this past June and he is about to enter college, something that 10 years ago I did not believe was possible. I do not believe he would be in this situation if we had gone ahead with the treatments available in CA at the time of his diagnosis. The treatment he did then is now available in CA and other places. St. Jude is simply the best of the best and our family owes them a debt we can never repay.

They do operate using clinical trials, and they only treat patients that they have an available treatment for and expertise with. They do not say in their ads that they will take any patient, they state very clearly that "no patient will be turned away because of race, creed or inability to pay". They will bill your insurance if you have any and take whatever they get, a patient will never see a bill. They are privately funded, because of this they are not held hostage by the insurance companies/hmo's. In addition to patients that have conditions they've developed treatments for, they will also take patients who have rare diseases that have no available treatments and develop a custom treatment protocol for them. We also know of patients from other countries they will accept who have diseases for which there is no good treatment in their home countries. I know of no other organization that does this.

I encourage those who take issue with the CEO salaries to calculate those salaries as a percentage of revenue brought in and compare against similar organizations. St. Jude has huge operating costs and large financial reserves, part of this is so that when they take on a patient they are guaranteed the funding to finish their treatment. Some of the leukemia protocols are in excess of 3 years, St. Jude houses and feeds these families for the complete duration of treatment.

St. Jude will accomodate up to four people in any patient housing. If the patient is in the hospital, up to four other family members may stay in the patient housing. There is a meal allowance for use in the cafeteria, patients staying in Target House (apartments) get a weekly grocery card to offset expenses. They provide transportation to and from all of their facilities.

Perhaps the very best thing of all about St. Jude was that I can say that in my entire life we've never been shown such unconditional love by complete strangers, in Memphis not only did they take care of my son but also our family in the most loving way imaginable, body and soul. There is a saying at St. Jude, you go there with one sick child and you come home with 35, we hold so many of the friends we met there so very close to our hearts, and so many we've lost. Having a child with a life-threatening illness is perhaps one of the very worst thing a parent can endure and St. Jude ministered to all of us in just so many ways, I truly believe there is no other place like St. Jude in the world.

To Kathy Wolfe, who commented that on their form 990 they list no fundraising expenses, I'd like to direct you to form 990 for FY2012 schedule H, it's on page 64 of the PDF at the below link:
http://www.stjude.org/SJFile/990form-stjude-fy12.pdf

It says:
"THE FUNDRAISING SOURCE FOR ST. JUDE IS ALSAC WHICH RAISES FUNDS SOLELY
FOR THE HOSPITAL. BECAUSE OF THE HOSPITAL'S MISSION, PEOPLE NATIONWIDE
CONTRIBUTE VIA TENS OF THOUSANDS OF FUNDRAISING EFFORTS. ALSAC
CONTRIBUTED $442 MILLION IN FISCAL YEAR 2012 TO MEET THE OPERATING COST
OF ST. JUDE."

St. Jude doesn't hire any outside companies or people to do fundraising. To see the St. Jude fundraising expenses, you need to take a look at ALSAC's (American Lebanese Syrian Associated Charities) 990's, available on their page:
http://www.guidestar.org/organizations/35-1044585/american-lebanese-syrian-associated-charities.aspx

I hope this information helps.

My wife, a donor, and I just toured St. Jude's Children's Hospital and Research Center and were very impressed. No clients served pays a cent and the facilities are excellent. Most impressive is the improvements in survivor rates since inception through their research. Additionally, they don't copyright any of their research papers or patent their findings. All is open, and even distributed to, all other research agencies. They have video worldwide conferences with other researchers. Whan they find doctors that are treating children with cancer that aren't educated sufficiently they bring them to Memphis to bring them up to standard. I am now changing some of my charitable giving to give to ALSAC.

Until recently I supported this charity on a monthly basis. Not long ago I lost the credit card that was being used for an automatic debit each month. I had to cancel the card. Soon I got a call from St Jude's financial office because they were unable to debit my cancelled credit card. They demanded that I give them the new number, but my wallet was unavailable to me at the time and so I told them I would find it and call them back. They demurred and loudly demanded that I find it now.

Since then I have decline to contribute to them and will never do so again.

I have donated off and on to St. Jude for many years. Using Charity Navigator, I am reviewing all the potential charities that I will support this year. After seeing the two huge salaries for the CEO and COO of St. Jude, I concluded that my financial support should go elsewhere.

After 3 years working with ALSAC, i had to walk away. Salaries, perks and benefits are ridiculously high with not nearly enough going to the sick kids and their families. the researchers, doctors and volunteers on the other hand work tirelessly and are to be commended. but it was time to pick a new non profit when i saw the excessive bloat in this one. They have lost their way completely

I am a patient at St. Jude and I give them five stars because even though they may not be making enormous breakthroughs they still treat cancer patients, especially children for free. Personally I have received medications through them that I never would have been able to afford. Their fundraising may not be very efficient but they still treat their patients with enormous integrity.

My sister passed away from Leukemia and I've always donated to St. Jude - but seeing the outrageous salaries of the top officers has really made me reconsider giving to this organization. I regret that I will not be giving this year. There are other organizations more worthy of my donations.

I was shocked recently when I was informed that the CEO or COO of this charity receives a salary of at least 6 million dollars annually.Why is there a CEO? I have donated in the past and I will no longer do so.It makes me sad to think that 100 percent is not going to take care of sick children..

I worked at St. Jude on staff for 17 yr. I saw it change from an institution focussed on the children to an institution that derided its clinical staff and placed its priorities elsewhere i.e. laboratory though they still used the children as the means to raise money. Professionally, St. Jude has not made a major contribution to the outcome of children with cancer in over 20 yr - others have done that including the key areas of leukemia, brain tumors and non-Hodgkin lymphoma despite their claims on TV and elsewhere. The staff including nurse, techs etc who actually take care of the children have minimal retirements/benefits - actually embarrassing despite having spent 20-30 yr at the institution. Danny Thomas was great - and truly loved the children and supported staff. When he died - that died. When Don Pinkel (first medical director) left , the achievements in cancer therapy left. Give to your local cancer hospital - they give the same or better care. St. Jude is bloated with money.

I put exceeds expectations because I believe their HEART and INTENT is in the right place. I think their Fundraising Methods are outdated. They need to use more Internet and less mail service. Partnering with Carnival Cruise Lines was a smart move. But they need to do more to develop that relationship and those cruising on their ships. That is a an audience of 64,000+ every week. And there are people like myself who cruise with Carnival 7 or 8 times a year that would more than happy to volunteer to assist St Jude in getting the word out on these ships. We are cruising on them anyway, so there would be ZERO cost to St Jude.

My wife and I have been donors to St. Jude Research Hospital for many years. We always did it to help the kids. We were inspired by the late Danny Thomas who did so much to help St. Jude Research Hospital. Recently, through Charity Navigator, we were made aware of the outrageous salaries paid to the COO and the CEO. It is beyond belief that these two men would work for a charity and take a salary this large out of the charitie's funds. Needless to say we are very disappointed.

I am disgusted by the size of the executive salaries. I urge the board of this otherwise worthy charity to trim the bloated executive salaries back to the five-figure range, which is an amount that is more in line with the philosophy of a charitable organization. The word is GIVING, not GREED...

I saw a commercial about St. Jude that really touched my heart about 4 years ago and called their number to donate $20 for their research. Since then, they've probably spent over $20 in all the letters asking for more donations, address stickers, and notebooks they've sent to me since then. I've also moved three times since then and gotten married/changed my last name and they've somehow always stayed up to date with my current address and last name which must cost more money. I mean this sounds like a great organization but why would I spend money on them unless I know that they'll deal with my donation wisely? They should spend more money on the kids directly and less on measly gifts to donors that they didn't ask for. And--not to sound bitter--but I called them this morning to ask them about where the money goes. I talked to several people and they were all extremely snotty to me in tone and word and none cared to hear my genuine concern. I think that there a lot more charitable organizations out there more worthy of your support.

St. Jude's Children's Hospital has been one of my charities for many years now. They do such wonderful service for the children in their care. It's so important that we take care and provide for our children.

St. Jude has been on my list of charities for years now. Their mission is essential to our spirit and primordial to our humanity. They keep our infirmed children smiling and hoping for a better future.

ALSAC spends so much of the money it collects for children with cancer that it is no longer a reputable charity. When you give a gift of any amount to this charity, over 20% of your gift is spent on things that have nothing to do with childhood cancer. Last year, the charity’s rate of growth in expenses outpaced its rate of growth in revenue. Yet, the CEO of the charity nearly DOUBLED his own salary from the previous year. This charity would have you believe it desperately needs your money “to keep the hospital’s doors open”, yet it reports that it has over $2.5 BILLION in net assets on hand today.
There are some good cancer charities out there – ALSAC’s just not one of them.

ST JUDE'S RESEARCH HOSPITAL: When I worked for a major, international airline, I remember booking flights for doctors to go overseas -- in FIRST CLASS. The tickets were insanely expensive!! I understand they need to arrive rested, but Business Class would have been more than sufficiently restful, and would have been half the price. I thought about how many trips they booked and all the money that could have gone directly to patients.

I am a physician and have personally diagnosed children with ALL. I live in Peoria which has the St. Jude Midwest affiliate. These children were immediately enveloped in a blanket of services like I have never seen. I have seen firsthand what St. Jude does, and I donate every year knowing my money is being used well.

My daughter received care from this organization for a rare brain tumor. They gave us hope when NO one else could including the top experts in the field. They have to spend money soliciting because they are completely not for profit. It cost more than 1.6 million dollars PER DAY to run this organization. They freely give out the research to the medical community. Some of the top researchers and physicians have reached the point in their career where they do not even accept a salary! St Jude is everything they claim to be and more. Every employee is exceptional. I have been a registered nurse for many years and have never seen a group of more dedicated professionals. They are transparent about their funds, they give more than 70% to research and the programs surrounding the research like room, board and travel for the families. This is a very worthy, well run organization to give your hard earned money too. Thank you.

St Jude is the only organization that I trust that my donations actually goes back to the patients and research. The DR's sincerely want to cure cancer. I have been there I know!

Could someone explain how this charity gets 4 stars with Charity Navigator when they spend more than 25% of donations on expenses. I think their cause is a noble one but I question should expenses take this much of the average dollar

THEY SUCK! THEY LIE! THEY STEAL YOUR MONEY! My best girlfriend's baby has been turned down 4 months solidly with response that the baby is in her last stages she's 18 months old and a year ago they said that...They won't talk to her parents...There's nothing they can do...and their ad says they don't turn anyone away---Funny--this baby is 40lbs and walking around the furniture at home and they won't even look at her if we show up on the doorstep..I wish I never believed them, gave them money and if I had a way to tell the world I would post her picture on the internet for all of you to see...they are making a mistake...or just damn greedy!!!!!!!!!!!!

This organization is amazing. I've toured their facility and their focuson the kids AND their families is amazing. Everyone I met there talked about the kids and their mission.

i have sent money and i have helped the company in the past. i trust them and i think childrens international is doing some thing that others dont. i hope that all children who were sick are and were able to get the help they may need. the hospital is one that i recommend if you want to help some one in need. if you have a heart and are a human being who likes to help this is a charity for you. i have seen what they do and i believe they are true if you wanna see proof go in person to the hospital. like all charitys if you dont trust or like them than no one makes you send money to the company. its up to you to choose what you want to do in this world. we can help or we can stand by and do nothing.

My friend's son was treated at St. Jude's and I think they're an incredible organization: they follow (and sometimes lead) the latest in research, while also being caring practitioners.