The Richard M. Schulze Family Foundation commits $5.5 million to Children's Minnesota's neurosciences program

Best Buy™ founder's family foundation donates $4 million and issues a $1.5 million matching challenge to support North America's only neurosurgery suite of its kind opening at Children's Minnesota 

MINNEAPOLIS, Jan. 10, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Children's Minnesota is thrilled to announce the Richard M. Schulze Family Foundation donated $4 million to the health system's new pediatric hybrid intraoperative magnetic resonance imaging (iMRI) neurosurgery suite. The 2,970 square-foot iMRI surgical suite will be named after the foundation thanks to their lead gift, and opens next month at our Minneapolis hospital. Once operational, Children's Minnesota will become the first pediatric health system in North America with an iMRI suite equipped with both moving-scanner and moving-patient MRI technology in the same surgical space. 

In addition to the multi-million-dollar donation, the Richard M. Schulze Family Foundation launched a $1.5 million matching challenge happening now through Dec. 31, 2023. If the community gives $1.5 million exclusively to this challenge, the Richard M. Schulze Family Foundation will match it to further support the new iMRI suite and the neurosciences program at Children's Minnesota. 

"Our foundation is honored to support Children's Minnesota as they pioneer new ways – both technologically and clinically – to care for children across our region," said Mark Dienhart, president and CEO of the Richard M. Schulze Family Foundation. "Part of our foundation's mission is to strengthen and support effective initiatives in health care that benefit all – this iMRI suite is now an important part of our mission." 

"Children's Minnesota is deeply grateful for the Richard M. Schulze Family Foundation's generous gift and continued support of the kids in our care," said Jenny Soderholm, president of the Children's Minnesota Foundation. "The namesake of this foundation is synonymous with innovation and philanthropy. As a nonprofit, Children's Minnesota relies on the generosity of our donors to power our hospitals and clinics, including this one-of-a-kind surgical suite." 

Children's Minnesota's neurosciences program and radiology department will use the Richard M. Schulze Family Foundation iMRI Surgical Suite to perform both brain and total spine scans mid-procedure all within the same surgical space. Here, experts will make updated, real-time, clinical decisions at the point of care based on each scans' results.  

Children's Minnesota is one of the largest pediatric health systems in the United States and the only health system in Minnesota to provide care exclusively to children, from before birth through young adulthood. An independent and not-for-profit system since 1924, Children's Minnesota is one system serving kids throughout the Upper Midwest at two free-standing hospitals, nine primary care clinics, multiple specialty clinics and seven rehabilitation sites. As The Kids Experts™ in our region, Children's Minnesota is regularly ranked by U.S. News & World Report as a top children's hospital. 

Dick Schulze, founder of Best Buy, Inc., created his family foundation in 2004. The foundation primarily serves communities in Minnesota where the founder was born, raised his family, built Best Buy, Inc. – the world's largest consumer electronics retailer -- and in Florida where he now lives and works. The Schulze Family Foundation awards grants to nonprofits in the areas of human and social services, education (including college scholarships), and health and medicine.

SOURCE Children's Minnesota