Nationwide Children’s Hospital Receives $25 Million Gift to Support Institute for Mental and Behavioral Health Research

(COLUMBUS, Ohio) – Nationwide Children’s Hospital announced today that longtime donors Joe and Linda Chlapaty have donated $25 million to support the recently launched Institute for Mental and Behavioral Health Research. The gift will fund innovative research, endowed faculty to recruit nationally renowned researchers, and construction for new facilities.

The Chlapatys’ commitment is part of the recently announced “Empower the Possible” campaign to raise $500 million to support the hospital’s $3.3 billion strategic plan.

The Chlapatys have cumulatively given more than $30 million to Nationwide Children’s Hospital during the past four decades to support areas including this latest gift for behavioral health research, craniofacial and plastic surgery, child abuse prevention, suicide prevention, innovation in pediatric practice, and more.

Joe Chlapaty joined the Nationwide Children’s Hospital Board of Trustees in 2008 and has led the finance committee through periods of tremendous growth. Linda Chlapaty is on the board of the hospital’s Center for Family and Safety Healing.

“I am so grateful for Joe and Linda Chlapaty,” said Tim Robinson, chief executive officer, Nationwide Children’s Hospital. “They have been supporting our mission for four decades. Whatever we need, they are there. Their leadership, generosity, and advocacy have made such a difference not only to Nationwide Children’s but to the entire community.”

In recognition of the Chlapatys’ decades of support of Nationwide Children’s, the hospital’s fourth research building will now be known as the Joe and Linda Chlapaty Research Building at the Abigail Wexner Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital.

The building, which opened in May 2023, is home to the Steve and Cindy Rasmussen Institute for Genomic Medicine; the Center for Gene Therapy, where two of the first eight gene therapies approved by the FDA were developed; the Center for Regenerative Medicine, where a tissue engineered blood vessel that received FDA Breakthrough Status is being developed; and the Center for Childhood Cancer Research, whose faculty have received two Cancer Moonshot grants from the National Institutes of Health. The opening of this building brought the total square footage devoted to research at Nationwide Children’s to more than 800,000 square feet.

“Linda and I have tremendous confidence in Nationwide Children’s Hospital,” said Joe Chlapaty. “Addressing the crisis in children’s mental health requires big thinking and a lot of hard work. We want to help Nationwide Children’s with their ambitious efforts to ensure that all kids have an opportunity to grow up healthy and safe and achieve their best outcomes.”

Steve Testa, president of the Nationwide Children’s Foundation, said that the Chlapatys’ impact is immeasurable.

“Obviously, Nationwide Children’s is lucky to have Joe and Linda Chlapaty as such dedicated, determined supporters,” Testa said. “This gift is truly transformational and will propel our mental health research capabilities to new levels, benefitting children in central Ohio and beyond for generations to come.”

About The Abigail Wexner Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital Named to the Top 10 Honor Roll on U.S. News & World Report’s 2023-24 list of “Best Children’s Hospitals,” Nationwide Children’s Hospital is one of America’s largest not-for-profit free-standing pediatric health care systems providing unique expertise in pediatric population health, behavioral health, genomics and health equity as the next frontiers in pediatric medicine, leading to best outcomes for the health of the whole child.  Integrated clinical and research programs are part of what allows Nationwide Children’s to advance its unique model of care. As home to the Department of Pediatrics of The Ohio State University College of Medicine, Nationwide Children’s faculty train the next generation of pediatricians, scientists and pediatric specialists. The Abigail Wexner Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital is one of the Top 10 National Institutes of Health-funded free-standing pediatric research facilities in the U.S., supporting basic, clinical, translational, behavioral and population health research. The AWRI is comprised of multidisciplinary Centers of Emphasis paired with advanced infrastructure supporting capabilities such as technology commercialization for discoveries; gene- and cell-based therapies; and genome sequencing and analysis. More information is available at NationwideChildrens.org/Research.