GiveBetter x California

Champions for Health

Specialty-care access, immunization and physician support

Research time: ~7 min on GPT-6 Astra Light
  • Research — reviewed programs, finances and impact evidence.

Updated: 2026-09-14

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Summary

What do they do? Champions for Health organizes donated specialty care and preventive services for underserved San Diego County residents. Its work includes Project Access San Diego, community immunization and physician education. Our conditional estimate prices the specialty-care component against all recipient costs; immunization and physician-support health remain unpriced.

Why we’re interested in this organization:

  • Specialty-care coordination can remove practical barriers for uninsured people who already need treatment.

  • Pop-up vaccination delivery targets community settings and people with access barriers.

  • Its public financial and activity reporting makes program and funding questions concrete.

Our main reservations:

  • Free state vaccine stock and substantial contract income mean total vaccination activity cannot be attributed to private gifts.

  • Current homepage figures differ from dated annual reporting, and present marginal delivery capacity is unknown.

  • Surgery counts, screening rates and physician training do not establish incremental health or utility gains. The clinical unit cost, net treatment benefit and funding response are explicit judgments, not measured Champions effects.

What do you get for your dollar? $33.0M per better life: ten additional quality-adjusted life years in California. Judgment specialty-care QALYs at full recognized recipient cost; vaccination and other health unpriced..

Central resource normalization implies 118.9359 completed treatment pathways before counterfactual adjustment and 14.8669875 incremental treatment equivalents, yielding 0.7216984223300972 California QALYs over one year. These are modeled equivalents, not observed patients.

1. What do they do?

Project Access connects eligible uninsured San Diego County residents with donated specialist consultations and procedures. Case managers arrange diagnostic preparation, interpretation, transport and follow-up. Eligibility and specialist capacity limit access; the site states that waits vary and some specialties have limited resources. Other programs serve different populations. The current immunization page describes East County clinics for seniors, caregivers and related household or care staff, with high-dose flu vaccine available for older adults. It explicitly says home-based services are not currently offered.

2. Monitoring and information sharing

The FY 2023–24 annual report, published in the June 2025 physician magazine, reports flu and other vaccines, Project Access treatment and physician-support activity. Its dated figures should not be mixed with the homepage's undated annual figures. Reported improvement or fewer missed workdays lacks a comparable untreated group. The highest-value next dataset would link unique patients to indication, effective treatment completion, baseline/follow-up health utility and adverse events, while distinguishing new vaccination from vaccination obtained elsewhere. No independent donation-sensitive outcome evaluation was located.

3. Qualitative assessment

The mechanisms are clinically plausible, but effectiveness differs by indication. A randomized flu vaccine trial in 1,838 people aged 60+ found lower serologically confirmed influenza over one season. Its older vaccine, population and season do not fix the absolute risk reduction for current San Diego recipients; serological infection is also not equivalent to severe illness or death. A QALY model needs age/risk mix, contemporary effectiveness, actual additional uptake and illness severity. Likewise, donated surgery can restore function, but an appointment can be diagnostic or repeat care. Physician training requires a separate chain from changed practice to effective treatment; assigning patient health to every trained clinician would skip that chain.

The new scenario does not transfer the flu trial to surgery. Its specialty-care effect is a deliberately modest, subjective net utility improvement of 0.05 for one year, with no lifetime extrapolation, cure claim or mortality credit. The current Project Access page confirms San Diego residency and medically necessary specialist care, but also limited capacity and variable waits. A complete pathway may yield no benefit or harm. The current page's approximately 30% requiring outside-office surgery or procedures is not multiplied into a general case count: our modeled unit is a completed effective treatment pathway, not an appointment or referral.

4. What do you get for your dollar?

The original 2023–25 returns and Schedule D reconciliations establish comparable accrual costs. Gross recognized resources are $3,621,619 in 2023, $5,011,784 in 2024 and $2,378,718 in 2025. Each equals Form 990 expenses plus separately netted event costs and donated services: respectively $3,156,488 + $83,139 + $381,992; $4,581,892 + $128,162 + $301,730; and $1,963,721 + $99,031 + $315,966. Schedule D's audited-statement expense amounts are lower by direct benefits to donors of $32,367, $66,190 and $62,423, which this gross resource measure retains. These are filed reconciliations, not a newly inspected auditor's opinion. Unrecognized partner resources remain an additional cost risk.

The conditional specialty-care estimate is $32.96 million per ten California QALYs. It uses the latest full-recipient cost, not just Project Access spending, and charges all fundraising and other programs to the priced health component. It is not a complete portfolio return. The central assumptions allocate 25% of resources to completed specialty-treatment pathways at $5,000 each including partner resources, retain half the benefit after alternative care, and apply a 25% funding-response factor once. Net benefit is judged at 0.05 QALY over one year, discounted 3%. These are scenario judgments, not measured marginal costs or clinical effects.

Model, assumptions and sensitivity

Full recipient annual recognized economic resources, including donated services and gross event costs. Only specialty-care health is priced; other portfolio pathways remain unpriced. Resource normalization is not a funding request.

g_CA=1 for qualifying San Diego County resident specialty-care pathways. This is an independently reviewed California denominator, not a population allocation or imported LA share. Low scenario permits 5% nonresident/relocation leakage.

N=C*f/k; incremental effective treatment equivalents=N*a*b; Q_CA=N*a*b*u*T*g_CA/(1+d). Central T=1 year; u=0.05 utility improvement, so u*T=0.05 undiscounted QALY. Price10=10*C/Q_CA. Q_portfolio_CA=Q_specialty_CA+Q_other_CA with Q_other_CA unknown. No completion factor or response multiplier is applied twice.

C
2378718 USD annual gross recognized recipient resources (observed). 2025 return 1,963,721 + events 99,031 + donated services 315,966. [original-2025-IRS990] [original-2025-IRS990ScheduleD]
f
0.25 fraction of recipient resources (judgment). Near but below the 556,597/1,963,721 reported Project Access share; allocation of incremental resources is not observed. [original-2025-IRS990]
k
5000 USD full resources per completed treatment pathway (judgment). Judgment including donated clinical opportunity costs, not a quoted fee or observed program average.
a
0.5 net additional treatment-benefit fraction (judgment). Alternative charity/public/later treatment discounted separately from funding response.
b
0.25 funding-response fraction (judgment). Judgment on capacity, unrestricted allocation response and contract replacement; applied once.
u
0.05 utility improvement for one year (judgment). Subjective net clinical benefit after treatment burdens; no empirical organization effect claimed.
T
1 year (judgment). Finite effect; no benefit beyond one year.
g_CA
1 California share of priced health (judgment). Current San Diego County resident eligibility; not a whole-portfolio share. [pasd]
d
0.03 annual discount rate (judgment). Conservative end-of-year timing.
Q_other_CA
null California QALYs (unknown). Vaccination and physician-support effects not included in the central health price.

Conditional specialty-care central: Cost: $2.4M; California QALYs: 0.7216984223300972; all-population QALYs: 0.7216984223300972. f=.25; k=5000; a=.5; b=.25; u=.05; T=1; g_CA=1; d=.03.

Low benefit / weak funding response: Cost: $2.4M; California QALYs: 0.0007313210679611652; all-population QALYs: 0.0007698116504854371. f=.1; k=15000; a=.1; b=.05; u=.01; T=1; g_CA=.95; d=.03.

Favorable treatment and capacity: Cost: $2.4M; California QALYs: 27.713219417475727; all-population QALYs: 27.713219417475727. f=.4; k=2000; a=.8; b=.5; u=.15; T=1; g_CA=1; d=.03.

No additional health: Cost: $2.4M; California QALYs: 0; all-population QALYs: 0. Complete funding substitution or no clinical improvement.

Adverse stress test: Cost: $2.4M; California QALYs: -1; all-population QALYs: -1. One net California QALY lost through adverse treatment or displaced superior services; subjective stress test, not forecast.

Complete portfolio remains unpriced: Cost: $2.4M; California QALYs: unknown; all-population QALYs: unknown. Do not equate the priced specialty-care component with all portfolio health.

Counterfactual: Existing contract-funded delivery and state vaccine supply continue; consider vaccinations at pharmacies/clinics, public coverage, other charity care, conservative treatment and later care. A gift must change uptake or treatment beyond this baseline.

Attribution: a discounts eventual alternative or public care; b separately discounts whether an unrestricted gift changes delivery rather than contracts, reserves or capacity. k includes coordination and partner resources; known donated resources are already in C, not added again.

All numerical clinical and donor-response parameters are judgments. Broad joint scenarios are not confidence bounds. The narrow health component cannot establish a complete portfolio ranking. The utility prior represents expected net health area over the stated finite horizon, including treatment burden, within-horizon fade and competing mortality; it is not an endpoint score held indefinitely. No survival extension is credited.

Sensitivity

  • Doubling full resources per completed pathway k doubles the component price, holding all other inputs fixed.
  • At fixed model parameters, proportional annual cost scaling changes output but not price. At the central normalization, reaching $1 million per ten QALYs requires 23.78718 California QALYs versus 0.7216984223300972 modeled; no such yield is demonstrated.

Unresolved inputs

  • Completed unique treatment pathways, indication mix and actual full partner resource cost.
  • Prospective utility and complication data with alternative-care timing.
  • Current unrestricted funding response and specialty-slot capacity.
  • Incremental vaccination and physician-support health; full portfolio remains unpriced.

5. Funding and previous grants

Original 2025 Part III reports Project Access expenses of $556,597 and immunization expenses of $977,407; immunization spending was $3,161,535 in 2024. This directly supports a changed portfolio, so earlier vaccine throughput is not extrapolated. Current immunization material describes state-supplied vaccines and external partnerships. A donation can support coordination, replace contracts or finance reserves; neither the deficit nor the reduction establishes a funding gap. Project Access's clinical partners donate resources, and those resources must remain in the economic cost rather than receive separate uncosted health credit. The giving page confirms the recipient is San Diego County Medical Society Foundation dba Champions for Health, EIN 95-2568714.

Annual expenses

Organization-level spending, including programs, administration and fundraising. The research list averages three comparable, consecutive full fiscal years when available.

  • FY 2023: $3.6M; San Diego County Medical Society Foundation dba Champions for Health, EIN95-2568714, 12-month period, Accrual original Form 990 expenses plus separately netted event costs and Schedule D donated services; recognized full-recipient resources. Source
  • FY 2024: $5.0M; San Diego County Medical Society Foundation dba Champions for Health, EIN95-2568714, 12-month period, Accrual original Form 990 expenses plus separately netted event costs and Schedule D donated services; recognized full-recipient resources. Source
  • FY 2025: $2.4M; San Diego County Medical Society Foundation dba Champions for Health, EIN95-2568714, 12-month period, Accrual original Form 990 expenses plus separately netted event costs and Schedule D donated services; recognized full-recipient resources. Source

6. Sources

  1. Current programs and undated annual impact. Champions for Health. Published: not stated; retrieved: 2026-09-13.
  2. Project Access San Diego. Champions for Health. Published: not stated; retrieved: 2026-09-13.
  3. Free immunization program. Champions for Health. Published: not stated; retrieved: 2026-09-13.
  4. FY 2023–24 annual report in June 2025 San Diego Physician. Champions for Health / San Diego County Medical Society. Published: not stated; retrieved: 2026-09-13.
  5. Financial Highlights and report directory. Champions for Health. Published: not stated; retrieved: 2026-09-13.
  6. Ways to Give and recipient identity. Champions for Health. Published: not stated; retrieved: 2026-09-13.
  7. Efficacy of influenza vaccination in elderly individuals. Govaert et al. / JAMA. Published: 1994-12-07; retrieved: 2026-09-13.
  8. IRS-derived latest expense extracts. ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer / IRS. Published: not stated; retrieved: 2026-09-13.
  9. FY 2023 original Form 990. San Diego County Medical Society Foundation / IRS. Published: not stated; retrieved: 2026-09-14.
  10. FY 2023 original Schedule D expense reconciliation. San Diego County Medical Society Foundation / IRS. Published: not stated; retrieved: 2026-09-14.
  11. FY 2024 original Form 990. San Diego County Medical Society Foundation / IRS. Published: not stated; retrieved: 2026-09-14.
  12. FY 2024 original Schedule D expense reconciliation. San Diego County Medical Society Foundation / IRS. Published: not stated; retrieved: 2026-09-14.
  13. FY 2025 original Form 990. San Diego County Medical Society Foundation / IRS. Published: not stated; retrieved: 2026-09-14.
  14. FY 2025 original Schedule D expense reconciliation. San Diego County Medical Society Foundation / IRS. Published: not stated; retrieved: 2026-09-14.