Max's Love Project, Inc.
Helping kids and families thrive in the face of childhood cancers.
Programs and results
What we aim to solve
Main Problem: Most kids diagnosed with cancer go on to survive through adulthood but experience much lower quality of life and have much higher health risks for everything from heart disease and obesity to secondary cancers and early death. It's therefore our mission to increase the quality of life and reduce long-term health risks for all children surviving cancer, both in treatment and beyond. We empower families fighting childhood cancers and related life-threatening conditions with quality of life care, fierce foods, whole-body wellness resources, education and research. We believe that true health starts when families are empowered to be active partners in their child’s healing.
Our programs
What are the organization's current programs, how do they measure success, and who do the programs serve?
Fierce Foods Academy
MaxLove Project offers culinary medicine cooking classes and nutrition support — what we call our Fierce Foods Academy — both online and in-person, in the community, hospital, and within our mobile app.
Our Fierce Foods Academy culinary medicine program is a family-focused culinary medicine class designed to empower families to incorporate healing, nutrient-dense foods into their family's wellness plan. Through arts, crafts, play, and cooking, kids learn about fighting bad guys (colds, germs, and even cancer), super-boosting their good guys, and having fun, all with delicious “fierce foods.” In every class, parents are also educated on the reasons and skills needed for buying, preparing, and serving “fierce foods.”
In an effort to provide high-impact and far-reaching culinary medicine programs in pediatric healthcare, we've brought together an innovative collaborative to build this pioneering culinary medicine program and study the use of the Fierce Foods mobile teaching kitchen.
Ohana Wellness Sessions
The Ohana Project (Ohana Wellness Sessions) is our Orange County, California-based program that combines integrative therapies such as acupuncture, with in-person and online peer support and preventive health behavior education. The program is designed to bring families together in small groups to engage in activities that improve quality of life and reduce long-term health risks for childhood cancer survivors.
The cornerstone of our Ohana Sessions is the community acupuncture component offered by the expert team at Open Mind Modalities. Acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine is offered in our group treatment “living room” where families — SuperKids & SuperSibs — gather in mutual support and to play while in care.
MaxLove Project Connect Private Mobile App
MaxLove Project Connect is a first-of-its-kind mobile platform for childhood cancer and rare disease parents, MaxLove Connect is our private online expert-facilitated mobile app community that provides evidence-based integrative care resources, therapeutic social support, mental wellness, e-learning, live in-app events, cooking classes and more!
Where we work
Awards
Charley Hester Award 2015
CHOC Foundation
External reviews
Photos
Videos
Our results
How does this organization measure their results? It's a hard question but an important one.
Evaluation documents
Download evaluation reportsNumber of clients whose nutrition has improved
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Type of Metric
Outcome - describing the effects on people or issues
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
This metric relates to one location of our hospital-based culinary medicine program were we evaluate program efficacy via program evaluations. The metric is affected by COVID for 2020 and 2021.
Our Sustainable Development Goals
Learn more about Sustainable Development Goals.
Goals & Strategy
Reports and documents
Download strategic planLearn about the organization's key goals, strategies, capabilities, and progress.
Charting impact
Four powerful questions that require reflection about what really matters - results.
What is the organization aiming to accomplish?
MaxLove Project is the only childhood cancer nonprofit organization that focuses exclusively on improving quality of life and reducing long-term health risks for all families affected by childhood cancer. Our goal is to ensure that every kid diagnosed with cancer thrives against the odds. MLP works to achieve maximum quality of life for childhood cancer families through 1) tailored cooking classes both inside and outside of the hospital; 2) whole-family wellness kits; 3) targeted peer social support; and 4) professional, individualized health and wellness education.
What are the organization's key strategies for making this happen?
We help families find empowerment in the health system we have access to today as we partner to change the system for tomorrow. We do this via our quality of life focused programs and initiatives that are outlined below:
1 - Culinary Medicine (Fierce Foods Academy, Culinary Medicine Collaborative, MLP Cookbook)
2 - MaxLove Project Connect Platform (private community, e-learning, mental healthcare and more)
3 - Ohana Wellness Sessions (integrative health, acupuncture, nurse coaching)
4 - Wellness retreats for mothers and grieving parents
5 - Provider Advocacy Network & Children's Hospital Partnerships
What are the organization's capabilities for doing this?
MaxLove Project currently supports these programs and initiatives with credentialed and expert staff. Our main barrier today is sustainable funding post-COVID.
What have they accomplished so far and what's next?
1 - Culinary Medicine (Fierce Foods Academy, Culinary Medicine Collaborative, MLP Cookbook)
MaxLove Project currently offers culinary medicine programming in-person and online in our private mobile platform. Our in-person classes are offered in the community in our Fierce Foods Kitchen sites and in the hospital using our mobile teaching kitchen cart. Our Fierce Foods Kitchen cookbook launches in February 2023 and our tailored hospital-based curriculum will be published in early 2024. We are the only culinary medicine program serving childhood cancer and pediatric rare disease patients.
2 - MaxLove Project Connect Platform (private community, e-learning, mental healthcare and more)
Our private platform serves 650 families with evidence-based e-learning, access to expert care, mental wellness and emotional healthcare, and therapeutic social support. It's our goal to grow to 2500 families in the year 2025. We're the only health & wellness focused platform in the space.
3 - Ohana Wellness Sessions (integrative health, acupuncture, nurse coaching)
Our Ohana Wellness Sessions offer acupuncture, nurse coaching and social support to families facing chronic hospitalizations in Southern California.
4 - Wellness retreats for mothers and grieving parents
We offer quarterly wellness retreats for mothers and grieving parents. Retreats feature culinary medicine, emotional processing, yoga, meditation and breathwork. Retreats are designed to support participants with tools for emotional fitness and longterm health.
5 - Provider Advocacy Network & Children's Hospital Partnerships
We're building a network of partnering hospital providers. Providers are empowered to refer families to MaxLove Project.
How we listen
Seeking feedback from people served makes programs more responsive and effective. Here’s how this organization is listening.
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How is your organization using feedback from the people you serve?
To identify and remedy poor client service experiences, To identify bright spots and enhance positive service experiences, To make fundamental changes to our programs and/or operations, To inform the development of new programs/projects, To identify where we are less inclusive or equitable across demographic groups, To strengthen relationships with the people we serve, To understand people's needs and how we can help them achieve their goals
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Which of the following feedback practices does your organization routinely carry out?
We collect feedback from the people we serve at least annually, We take steps to get feedback from marginalized or under-represented people, We aim to collect feedback from as many people we serve as possible, We take steps to ensure people feel comfortable being honest with us, We look for patterns in feedback based on demographics (e.g., race, age, gender, etc.), We look for patterns in feedback based on people’s interactions with us (e.g., site, frequency of service, etc.), We engage the people who provide feedback in looking for ways we can improve in response, We act on the feedback we receive, We tell the people who gave us feedback how we acted on their feedback, We ask the people who gave us feedback how well they think we responded
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What challenges does the organization face when collecting feedback?
It is difficult to get the people we serve to respond to requests for feedback
Financials
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Operations
The people, governance practices, and partners that make the organization tick.
Connect with nonprofit leaders
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- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
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Connect with nonprofit leaders
SubscribeBuild relationships with key people who manage and lead nonprofit organizations with GuideStar Pro. Try a low commitment monthly plan today.
- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
Want to see how you can enhance your nonprofit research and unlock more insights? Learn More about GuideStar Pro.
Max's Love Project, Inc.
Board of directorsas of 11/02/2023
Ms. Adrianne Marshack
Audra DiPadova
MaxLove Project
Term: 2011 -
Adrianne Marshack-Murphy
Courtney Collins
Sara Song
Erica Balkhi
Jacque Stubblefield
Sophy Singer
Amy Lebrun
Michael Puglisi
Cathy McKnight
Amanda Defour
Jason Joseph
Iain Foshay
John Wende
Board leadership practices
GuideStar worked with BoardSource, the national leader in nonprofit board leadership and governance, to create this section.
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Board orientation and education
Does the board conduct a formal orientation for new board members and require all board members to sign a written agreement regarding their roles, responsibilities, and expectations? Yes -
CEO oversight
Has the board conducted a formal, written assessment of the chief executive within the past year ? Yes -
Ethics and transparency
Have the board and senior staff reviewed the conflict-of-interest policy and completed and signed disclosure statements in the past year? Yes -
Board composition
Does the board ensure an inclusive board member recruitment process that results in diversity of thought and leadership? Yes -
Board performance
Has the board conducted a formal, written self-assessment of its performance within the past three years? Yes
Organizational demographics
Who works and leads organizations that serve our diverse communities? Candid partnered with CHANGE Philanthropy on this demographic section.
Leadership
The organization's leader identifies as:
Race & ethnicity
Gender identity
Transgender Identity
Sexual orientation
No data
Disability
No data