“You do need a staff, and that’s one thing nonprofit contributors tend to underestimate,” says Blazine Monaco in justifying her business plan’s capital requirements for employee salaries. Ditto for rent, office equipment and supplies, and the myriad of mundane money matters nagging the worthiest of nonprofits.

The Littlest Heroes is a social services agency providing for the needs of families of children undergoing cancer treatment. This can include everything from meal preparation and delivery for parents distracted by grueling courses of treatments to wheelchair ramp construction and videoconferencing services so homebound students can rejoin their classrooms.

The need is pressing: Some 220 new childhood cancer cases are diagnosed in Northeast Ohio area each year, with the typical patient undergoing one to three years of treatment. While most clients are local, The Littlest Heroes has assisted families seeking treatment here from as far away as Chile.

As Monaco explains: “We’re putting together an entire support system to complement the medicine.” All free of charge to families, which is where the constant need for funding comes in.

Having lost seven members of her own family plus a young family friend to cancer, Monaco traded in her career in health care marketing to found The Littlest Heroes in 2001—a full year earlier than she’d planned. She went into a meeting with the head of oncology at Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital, hoping to garner support, and instead the doctor handed over her first cases. Monaco had to scramble to find funding to deliver the services to which she’d committed.

That task, while always daunting, has become more manageable than anticipated. Over the past two years, the organization has raised $250,000 plus an incalculable amount in donated services and labor.

“If I wasn’t doing what I’m doing, I’d be totally unaware of the generosity of Clevelanders,” Monaco says.

Reprinted from COSE Update magazine