This year, charitable investment in Cedars-Sinai took a variety of forms, and planned gifts—contributions stemming from bequests or other estate-planning vehicles—were particularly instrumental in ensuring the medical center’s ongoing ability to meet the community’s diverse healthcare needs.

Sometimes, those gifts came from unexpected places. During their lifetimes, Susanne and Ervin Bard gave generously of their time and resources to help advance Cedars-Sinai’s mission. Yet, their hardworking humility and modest lifestyle gave no indication of their true capacity for philanthropic impact.

Ervin passed away in 2006; Susanne died 15 years later, in 2021. At the time of her death, Cedars-Sinai was identified as the sole beneficiary of an astonishing bequest worth nearly $150 million.

“When I learned about the amount of the gift, I was absolutely stunned,” recalled Arthur Ochoa, JD, Cedars-Sinai’s senior vice president of Advancement and chief advancement officer. “These were people who started out their adult lives with nothing. The thought that this beautiful, unassuming couple, who did not live large in any way, would go all in for Cedars-Sinai—it’s the only time in my 22 years here I can recall that I’ve actually been moved to tears.”

Cedars-Sinai received proceeds from the Bards’ estate in 2021 and 2022. Theirs is the largest single gift—and the biggest legacy gift—in Cedars-Sinai’s history, and the Advanced Health Sciences Pavilion was renamed in their honor as the Susanne and Ervin Bard Pavilion.

The Bards’ bequest is one of many that play a crucial role in strengthening Cedars-Sinai’s clinical care programs and accelerating the pace of scientific discovery.

“Planned gifts enable us to chart a course to the future of research and patient care,” Ochoa said. “When someone includes Cedars-Sinai in their estate plans, it leaves an enduring legacy for generations of patients and their families here in Los Angeles and beyond our community.”