The David and Lucile B. Packard Foundation will donate up to $100 million to the expansion of the children’s hospital at Stanford University that bears their name. The Lucile Packard Children’s hospital wants to add 104 new beds and make more cutting-edge treatment options available to local kids in Palo Alto.
The foundation says that it will initially donate $50 million to the hospital, but the other $50 million will be part of a challenge grant that will be paid on a 1:2 basis. (This means that, for every $2 donated by other organizations, the Packard Foundation will donate $1.) The total amount of funds raised for the hospital could therefore total $200 million if the entire challenge grant is met.
Carol Larson, the president of the foundation, said that "[t]his gift is an investment in our children’s health, today and in the years to come. As a foundation born out of Silicon Valley, we are committed to making the Bay Area a healthy place for kids to grow up, as well as an innovator in pediatric medicine. That vision is at the heart of the hospital’s expansion, and we are proud to help make it possible"
The Packard Foundation was created in 1964 by David Packard, who co-founded Hewlett-Packard with Bill Hewlett in 1939. The foundation’s giving is divided in to three primary branches: Conservation and Science, Population and Reproductive Health, and Children, Families and Communities. Donations totaled $342 million in 2008, but economic conditions will push 2009′s total lower, to $276 million, though the foundation did enter 2009 worth $4.65 billion.