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Thirty-five years of filling the ‘Greatest Need’ in northern Alberta health care

Published: August 17, 2020

Northern Lights Health Foundation funds projects both big and small to improve access to quality health care

Non-profits are inherent fundraising experts who know how to stretch a dollar.

For an organization that raises funds for costly medical equipment and health infrastructure, that dollar-stretching is of paper-thin variety.

Over the 35 years that Northern Lights Health Foundation (NLHF) has built its impact and presence in Alberta, the master fundraisers collect an of average $3.5 million every year towards optimizing healthcare in the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo, with sources including private and corporate donations as well as special events.

In the context of COVID-19, those events—and thus fundraising—have been placed on hold.

“The pandemic has created a situation for us where boundaries have been broken between what was urgent care and what wasn’t,” says Cindy Amerongen, executive director of NLHF. “We want to keep our Greatest Need fund going so that we can continue to respond quickly to these unique and new requests.”

The Greatest Need account has been around as long as NLHF has—since 1985. While the spotlight is often placed on massive initiatives such as the NHLF’s Gratitude Project, which in 2019 completed its goal of raising $16 million for eight major projects, the Greatest Need fund collects smaller, general donations into an unrestricted fund that can be allocated to emergent needs as they arise.

It is what many of us would consider a rainy-day fund—something built over time and readily available when we need it.

“We recently allocated over $30,000 to a piece of equipment for minor ear surgery that will save patients from having to go to Edmonton for treatment, and it takes time to raise that money from the smaller donations we receive,” says Amerongen. “It’s really important to have those funds available so we can respond to equipment and program requests quickly.”

As part of our commitment to improving quality of life in the communities where we operate, Enbridge supported the NLHF this spring by providing $15,000 to the Greatest Need account amidst COVID-19.

The Greatest Need account has completed several important projects in recent years that, according to Amerongen, propel the hospital forward by “leaps and bounds.”

While having a fundraising account for general projects has the benefit of being flexible to immediate needs, it also adds complexity to choose just what project is deemed most important.

“With each project that is in front of us, our board has to make the decision: do you use the funds to buy 10 pieces of something or do you put all of your eggs in one basket that will have multiple impacts for a long time?” says Amerongen.

On this front, the pie tends to be cut a number of ways. Recently, the NLHF board went with a major decision to allocate approximately $800,000 in funds from the Greatest Need account to enable the purchase of Omnicell Drug Medication systems to centralize the way prescriptions are tracked and assigned throughout the regional hospital, thus eliminating the risk of human error for life-saving drugs. Other times, funding may go towards several smaller purchases such as personal protective equipment or cleaning materials.

Especially during COVID-19, Amerongen is proud of the support NLHF is able to provide and the ability to allocate funds on the spot.

“This organization has grown from a few volunteers who were concerned about how they could advance health care in our region to a major funding support for healthcare in our region—I’m so pleased to see the impact we are having, particularly in this present time of need.”

(TOP PHOTO: The Northern Lights Health Foundation, based in Fort McMurray, AB, funds both large health-care initiatives and emergent needs as they arise.)

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