The organizations you mention and support do fine work.

Their range and scope are nevertheless limited.

St. Jude's, from their website:

St. Jude welcomes referrals of children and adolescents with newly diagnosed untreated or suspected cancer or with hematologic, immunologic, or genetic diseases. In addition, previously treated patients who have received treatment elsewhere, may be accepted on an individual case basis when there is a potential for protocol eligibility on ongoing studies, relapse studies, bone marrow transplantation protocols or Phase I-II studies. Patients with genetic disorders or immunologic diseases are accepted anytime in their disease history based on protocol eligibility or potential to contribute to research projects. If your child’s diagnosis is not listed on our disease list on this site, it may still prove beneficial to your child for your physician to call us to discuss your child’s individual diagnosis.

I consulted their A-Z list of diseases they treat. It boils down to cancers, tumors, pediatric HIV/AIDS and certain other immunodeficiency diseases, and some hereditary diseases. If your kid has something more commonly life-threatening, like asthma or juvenile diabetes, forget it.

St. Jude treats, according to their own website, 4,500 children mostly on an outpatient basis for diseases whose treatments are in the research stage. They have a limited number of beds, and clearly nowhere near 4,500.

The child must also be able to travel to and stay in Memphis. Since treatment is on an outpatient basis, the child must be accompanied by a parent or other adult. Most working families have an abysmal family leave policy to fall back on, so a parent can either take unpaid leave (rent, anyone?) at the expense of other children in the family, or can make arrangements for the child to stay with someone not the parent. I don't know how this works, legally, but I guess that St. Jude's works it out.

Le Bonheur, from their website:

Vital Statistics
Founded: June 15, 1952
Beds: 225
Pediatric Specialties: 45
Associates: 1,800
Emergency Department Visits Per Year: 78,000
Medical Staff: 558
Primary Service Area: 95 Counties in Six States
Popsicles Eaten Per Year: 37,894
Diapers Used Per Year: 56,322
Wagons Used To Carry Kids: 165
Toys Distributed Through Bunny Room: 26,873
Crayons Used At Playtime: 13,461
Stitches in Emergency Department: 54,386
Operations performed per year: 7,600
Lab tests per year: 305,000
Prescriptions filled per year: 727,676
Patients in the Intensive Care Unit per year: 1,500

Impressive. It doesn't mention how many are treated at no or nearly no cost to the family because of need, though.

As an employee of a non-profit, I also looked for their financial statement, which was not posted. (I'm sure they would send it out if I were to ask them.) Their philanthropic branch contact information included their fundraising methods, the tried-and-true war horses of a non-profit's income sources: events such as golf tournaments, and planned giving (bequests in wills), along with fund drives (telethons, raffles, auctions, etc.). This is all soft income. If someone doesn't feel like donating, or can't give as before because of economic hardship, that hole has to be filled by someone else. This goes for corporate and fraternal organizations as well. (We suffered the loss of a formerly big corporate supporter because of poor business trends, and it hurt.) Bequests are good, but for each individual, they only work once.

These two organizations do noble work and treat, at an estimate, almost 100,000 children per year. There are in the neighborhood of 11 million uninsured children ages 18 and under in the US, according to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, and that preventative health care is problematic for them. Almost 1% of those children might be treated by the institutions you support. What about the other 99%?

Private charities do well within the scope and range of their self-described mission. Both are small, compared to the size of the problem. I remind you that, if private charities had had this problem under control, government would not have had any reason to become a player in this particular issue. Children don't vote; it's a nuisance to have to deal with non-voters.