Eisenhower Health Foundation

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There are seven hospitals in the Coachella Valley. Six of them send their profits to a corporate headquarters in another state. Nashville. Dallas. Places you have never been.

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One hospital keeps every dollar.

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And that hospital receives zero government funding.

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This is the story of how an entire valley decided to fund its own healthcare. For fifty years. Without anyone telling them how it works.

TITLE CARD: "EISENHOWER HEALTH FOUNDATION"

There is something about the Coachella Valley that almost nobody talks about.

You have nine cities. More than 400,000 residents. Snowbirds, year-round families, farmworkers, retirees, people who have been here for generations, and people who arrived last year.

And you have multiple hospitals.

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But here is the thing most people never think to ask:

Who owns them?

At every hospital in this valley except one, the answer is a corporation. A for-profit chain headquartered in another state. Nashville. Dallas. Somewhere you have never been.

When those hospitals generate revenue, the margin leaves. It goes out of the valley. It goes to a corporate board that has never driven down Bob Hope Drive, never watched the sun set behind the Santa Rosas, never sat in a waiting room beside someone from Thermal or Mecca or Cathedral City.

Those hospitals serve the valley. But they do not belong to the valley.

Now — most people do not know that. And that is not their fault. Nobody told them.

Because there is one hospital in this entire geography that decided, more than fifty years ago, to do something different.

One hospital that belongs to the community it serves.

And the community that owns it has mostly forgotten to tell anyone how the whole thing works.

That is the invisible crisis.

Not a crisis of care. Eisenhower delivers extraordinary care. You probably know that already.

The crisis is that the model that makes it possible — the economic engine underneath it all — is almost entirely unknown.

And what people do not know, they cannot sustain.

Let me take you back to 1966.

A man named Clark Swanson has a heart attack on a golf course in the Coachella Valley.

There is no hospital to save him.

No trauma center. No emergency room within reach. In one of the wealthiest resort communities in America, a man dies because there is no first-rate medical care anywhere nearby.

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What happens next is the founding act of everything you are about to see.

Bob Hope. Leonard Firestone. A group of community members who looked at a desert with no hospital and said: we will build it ourselves.

Not a government program. Not a corporate expansion. Not a religious order. Not doctors who wanted a place to practice.

Philanthropists. People who pooled their own money because they believed this valley deserved better.

President Eisenhower lent his name. His legacy gave the institution its identity.

The hospital opened in 1971.

And from that moment forward, the model was set: this hospital would be sustained not by tax dollars, not by a corporate parent, but by the voluntary generosity of the people who live here.

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Now — if that were just a nice origin story, we could move on.

But it is not just a story. It is a fifty-year proof of concept.

Through recessions. Through the economic collapse of 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012. Through a global pandemic.

Eisenhower did not sell. It did not merge. It did not take a corporate buyout.

Every year for more than fifty years, the community chose to keep funding it.

Outpatient visits grew from 150,000 to 1.2 million.

Clinics spread across all nine valley cities so nobody has to drive thirty minutes for a blood draw.

A teaching hospital designation was earned. Specialists who could have practiced anywhere in the country chose to come here.

And the community that made all of that possible did it for one simple reason:

They believed that a desert valley should control its own healthcare.

That belief is not heritage. It is not history. It is the operating model, right now, today.

And it depends on what happens next.

Here is what almost nobody understands about how this hospital works.

And once you see it, you cannot unsee it.

TEXT OVERLAY: "THE MODEL"

Eisenhower Health is the only not-for-profit hospital in the Coachella Valley.

The only one.

Every other hospital in this valley is owned by a for-profit corporation headquartered out of state. When those hospitals generate revenue, the profit margin leaves the valley. It goes to shareholders. It goes to a corporate headquarters. It goes somewhere that is not here.

At Eisenhower, every dollar stays.

TEXT OVERLAY: "EVERY DOLLAR STAYS HERE."

Every dollar is reinvested — into the specialist you see next Tuesday, into the cancer center where your neighbor is being treated right now, into the mobile clinic that drove to Thermal last week to provide free care to families who have never set foot in a hospital lobby.

Now here is the part that surprises people.

This is not supplemental fundraising. This is not the cherry on top.

Eisenhower receives zero government funding.

Not a dollar from the state. Not a dollar from the federal government. The Foundation operates on zero government backstop.

TEXT OVERLAY: "Zero government funding. 100% community-funded."

Approximately eighty percent of the patients Eisenhower serves are on Medicare. And Medicare reimburses below the cost of care. There is a gap — between what it costs to provide world-class medicine and what the government pays for it.

That gap is closed entirely by philanthropic giving.

Let me say that differently.

The difference between this hospital surviving and this hospital not surviving is you. It is your neighbors. It is the community that has chosen, year after year, for fifty years, to close that gap with their own generosity.

This is not charity. This is the operating architecture of the institution.

When you give to UCLA, you are adding to a multi-billion-dollar endowment that will exist with or without you.

When you give to Eisenhower, you are keeping the valley in control of its own healthcare.

That is a fundamentally different proposition.

So what does your gift actually do?

Not "make a difference." Not "support patient care, research, and education." You can read that on every hospital website in America.

Here is what it does here. Specifically.

TEXT OVERLAY: "WHERE YOUR GIFT GOES"

The Mobile Care Unit.

Two private exam rooms on wheels. On the road every week. Serving all nine cities of the Coachella Valley — including the eastern valley communities that have historically had the least access to care.

Thermal. Mecca. Coachella. The rural stretches east of the Salton Sea.

The Mobile Care Unit provides free and low-cost basic health evaluations, vaccinations, preventive care, and referrals. No appointment needed. No insurance required. No cost to the patient.

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This unit exists because of a handwritten note.

A woman named Maria sent a modest donation to the Foundation with a note in Spanish: "This donation isn't much, but I send it with much love. May God bless you greatly."

That note revealed something the Foundation had missed. There was an entire community — year-round residents, families who had lived in the valley for generations — who did not know this hospital belonged to them too.

The Latinos in Philanthropy program was born from that note. An advisory board of eight Latino leaders stepped forward to build a bridge between the institution and the community it had not yet reached.

The Mobile Care Unit is the physical expression of that bridge.

Your gift puts it on the road.

TEXT OVERLAY: "SPECIALIST RECRUITMENT"

Specialist recruitment.

When a cardiac surgeon or an oncologist or a neurologist chooses to practice in the Coachella Valley instead of Los Angeles or New York, that is not an accident.

That is philanthropy at work.

Your gift funds positions that allow the hospital to recruit the caliber of physician you would expect at an academic medical center — but in a community where your doctor knows your name.

TEXT OVERLAY: "LUCY CURCI CANCER CENTER"

The Lucy Curci Cancer Center.

Comprehensive cancer care in the desert. The Delfino Patient and Family Support Center. Treatment that would otherwise require a two-hour drive to Los Angeles.

Community philanthropy built it. Community philanthropy sustains it.

TEXT OVERLAY: "NINE-CITY CLINIC NETWORK"

The clinic network.

Clinics deployed across the valley — Palm Springs, Palm Desert, La Quinta, Indio — so that no resident has to drive thirty minutes for a primary care appointment or a blood draw.

Twenty years ago, there were 150,000 outpatient visits a year.

Today, there are 1.2 million.

Every single one funded by the community it serves.

I want you to see who actually sustains this hospital.

Because it is not one kind of person. It is not just the wealthy. It is not just the seasonal residents. It is not just the people whose names you see on buildings.

TEXT OVERLAY: "THE SPECTRUM OF OWNERSHIP"

There is a donor who has given $35 million to this hospital.

Anonymously. He does not want his name on a building. What he said was: "I want the best possible care in my backyard, for my family, for my grandkids, for my neighbors. And that is why I am so supportive of what you are trying to do."

Thirty-five million dollars. And what he wanted was not recognition. He wanted care in his backyard.

And then there is Maria.

Who folded a modest gift into an envelope with a handwritten note in Spanish: "This donation isn't much, but I send it with much love."

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A $35 million gift and a handwritten blessing sustain the same institution.

Both are acts of ownership.

Both say the same thing: this hospital is ours, and we will not let it become someone else's.

TEXT OVERLAY: "$35M and a handwritten blessing. Both acts of ownership."

There are Frank and Alvera Gaeta, who have given every year since 1994. Thirty years of choosing this hospital. Their explanation is simple: "You don't have to go elsewhere for the best care."

During COVID, something remarkable happened. The community did not pull back. The community surged. Philanthropy to Eisenhower during and after the pandemic reached levels the Foundation had never seen.

Not because of a marketing campaign. Not because anyone asked harder.

Because in a crisis, the community chose its hospital.

That is not a fundraising result. That is a fifty-year relationship proving itself under the most extreme stress test imaginable.

Now here is where I stop talking about what other people have done.

And I ask you a question.

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Do you want to own a piece of this?

Not metaphorically. Structurally.

Because when you give to Eisenhower Health Foundation, you are not donating to a charity. You are sustaining an economic model that keeps this valley in control of its own healthcare.

There is no minimum threshold for belonging.

TEXT OVERLAY: "CHOOSE YOUR LEVEL OF OWNERSHIP"

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And for those who believe in the long game —

The Covenant Circle.

Monthly giving. Any amount. Twelve months of sustained commitment to the model.

The Covenant Circle is not a recurring donation. It is a standing promise. A covenant with your community that says: I am not giving once. I am choosing, every month, to keep this hospital in the hands of the people it serves.

TEXT OVERLAY: "THE COVENANT CIRCLE — Monthly giving. A standing promise."

Five dollars a month. Twenty-five dollars a month. A hundred dollars a month. Whatever is right for you.

The amount is not the point. The commitment is the point.

Now — if you are the kind of person who checks the data before you write the check, good.

We want that.

TEXT OVERLAY: "TEST US."

Eisenhower Health Foundation holds GuideStar Platinum status — the highest level of transparency recognition for nonprofits in the United States.

Our financials are public. Our impact data is available. Our operating model is exactly what we say it is: zero government funding, 100% community-funded, every dollar reinvested locally.

We are not asking you to take our word for it. We are asking you to verify it.

Look at the numbers. Compare us to any other hospital in this valley. Ask where their revenue goes at the end of the year. Ask whether it stays in the community or leaves for a corporate headquarters in another state.

Then ask the same question about Eisenhower.

The structural case is not a marketing message. It is a verifiable fact.

If you are a donor who gives through a Donor Advised Fund — Fidelity Charitable, Schwab Charitable, any DAF platform — you can direct your grant to Eisenhower Health Foundation today. The process takes minutes.

If you want a one-on-one briefing with Foundation leadership before you give, we will schedule it. Thirty minutes. Data-forward. No sales pitch.

Our fundraising philosophy was stated by our own team this way: "Don't sell. Just tell."

We are telling you. The model works. Fifty years of proof. And we will show you every piece of evidence you want to see.

I am not going to manufacture urgency.

There is no countdown timer. There is no "limited time" offer. This is a hospital, not a product launch.

But I am going to be honest with you about something.

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The generation that built this hospital is entering its final chapter.

The donors who have given faithfully for twenty, thirty, forty years — the people who sustained this model through recessions and pandemics and every year when the easy choice would have been to sell to a corporate chain — they are aging.

Their giving sustained us. And their replacements will not give the same way, through the same channels, for the same reasons.

The community is growing. The eastern valley — Coachella, Thermal, Mecca, the unincorporated areas — is where the population is expanding fastest. And it is where the healthcare access gaps are deepest.

The need is growing. The donor base that has sustained the model for fifty years is contracting.

There is zero guarantee that this continues without you.

That is not a scare tactic. That is the structural reality of a community-funded institution in a changing community.

The question is not whether Eisenhower has earned your trust. Fifty years of proof says it has.

The question is whether the next fifty years will have the same answer.

That depends on who steps forward now.

So here is what I am asking you to do.

TEXT OVERLAY: "CHOOSE YOUR LEVEL OF OWNERSHIP"

Go to eisenhowerhealth.org/giving.

Choose your level of ownership.

If you want to start with five dollars a month through the Covenant Circle, do that. Maria started with a handwritten note. It changed the trajectory of a program that now serves the entire valley.

If you want to direct a Donor Advised Fund grant, you can do that today. Our EIN is on the giving page. The process takes minutes.

If you want to make a one-time gift at any level, do it. Every dollar stays in the valley.

If you want to talk to someone first — if you are the kind of person who wants to see the data, meet the leadership, understand the model before you commit — call us. A live person will answer the phone. That is not a technology decision. That is a philosophy.

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You did not build this hospital.

Bob Hope did. Leonard Firestone did. Clark Swanson's death on a golf course set it in motion.

But every year for fifty years, people like you have chosen to keep building it.

The question was never "Why Eisenhower?"

The question is: if not here, who decides what healthcare looks like in the place where you live?

TEXT OVERLAY: "Every dollar stays here. EisenhowerHealth.org/giving"

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This hospital is yours.

Keep building.

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