Design concept — brand-kit edition — built exclusively from GameChanger's official brand assets. Not the live site.
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GameChanger Charity — reducing stress for seriously ill children.

Hope Lives Here
  • Our mission

    We help seriously ill kids feel less afraid.

    Less stress, more comfort, and a little more normal — right when a child needs it most.

    A young hospital patient holding Hope, GameChanger's green monkey.
    Hope — the green monkey that started it all.
Our story

It started with a green monkey.

When Taylor Carol was eleven, a broken elbow from a baseball game led to a diagnosis of leukemia and years in and out of the hospital. A green monkey he’d won at a Disneyland throwing contest stayed on his hospital bed through all of it. As Jim tells it, a hand-painted egg from a stranger at Seattle Children’s gave Taylor hope on a hard day — and the family decided to do that at scale.

GameChanger Charity grew out of that: a father and son who’d lived the isolation of a children’s hospital and wanted to give other kids a way to feel like kids again. The green monkey became “Hope” — now the charity’s mascot, given to thousands of children, per the family.

Today GameChanger is a holistic pediatric support organization with one mission: to reduce stress for seriously ill children — through comfort, play, technology, and research. A new breed of charity.

“Hope is everything. And so Hope is our mascot. Hope lives here.”

— Taylor Carol, co-founder

A young patient holding Hope, the green monkey.
A young patient receiving a comfort gift.
Two young patients playing on a tablet together.
What we do

Whatever helps a kid stay a kid.

We reduce stress and bring comfort to seriously ill children — through care, play, technology, and research.

A young patient receiving a comfort gift.

Comfort & in-room tech

Comfort gifts — toys, books, LEGO sets, and Hope plushies — plus consoles, curated bundles, VR, and in-room 3D printing, shipped from a family-run warehouse.

Two young patients playing together on a tablet.

Game rooms & family spaces

Playrooms, family lounges, and teen spaces where kids and families can breathe. At Primary Children’s, GameChanger helped fund the first playroom renovation since the building opened in 2001.

Per hospital staff, on camera.

Stress-reduction research

GameChanger funds research by Dr. Asher Marks at the Yale School of Medicine — using XR and AI to ease anxiety and stress for children in treatment.

Yale Center for Immersive Technologies in Pediatrics.

Hospital gaming networks

Safe, networked consoles in hospital rooms. Primary Children’s Hospital calls its inpatient gaming network “the first hospital in the world to provide inpatient online gaming, inaccessible to strangers” — a network GameChanger helped build.

Hospital-side: Intermountain Health blog.

Experiences & scholarships

College scholarships for young survivors — including the Brian Dovey Scholarship for children with Down syndrome battling cancer — plus experiences like equine therapy.

By the numbers

Honest numbers.

We’d rather under-claim than overstate. Here’s what we can stand behind.

$26M+
in cash and donated goods recorded since 2011 — roughly two-thirds of it in-kind.
GameChanger general ledger.
50+
hospital partners across North America.
GameChanger partner network (51 logos below).
1.7M
U.S. children are hospitalized every year. Play is how they stay kids.
AHRQ HCUP KID, 2019.

501(c)(3) since February 2009 · Candid Platinum Seal (2025) · Charity Navigator Three-Star · our most recent IRS filing is linked in the footer.

Hope the Monkey — GameChanger's mascot.
Hope lives here

Meet Hope.

A plush green monkey kept a hospitalized 11-year-old company through years of treatment. Today Hope is GameChanger’s mascot — and a reminder that comfort is the point.

Candid Platinum 2025 Charity Navigator ★★★ 2026 Nonprofit of the Year — CA SD-36

501(c)(3) public charity · EIN 26-3438815 · tax-exempt since February 2009.

Get involved

However you want to help.

For partners

A cause your community already loves.

A credible, transparent partner with real employee-engagement upside — 52% lower turnover at companies with engaged purpose programs.

Benevity, 2022.

Talk to our team
For families

Need support?

If your child is in the hospital and a game, a gift, or just a little normal would help — we’re here. No forms before kindness.

Reach out
For volunteers

Want to help?

This whole thing runs on people like you and a warehouse full of joy — packing gifts, running events, bringing comfort to kids.

Volunteer

A kid gets to play tonight.

For $25, a stack of games. For $150, a console for a room. Either way — you put hope in a hospital room.

Donate
Tax-deductible 501(c)(3) EIN 26-3438815 Candid Platinum · Charity Navigator ★★★
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