COMMUNITY IMPACT

As the leaseholder and largest annual donor to the Ridley-Tree Cancer Center, the Cancer Foundation commits the majority of the proceeds from its endowment and fundraising efforts to support cancer diagnosis, treatment, research, technology and support programs.

​The Cancer Foundation of Santa Barbara was founded in 1949 on a promise — a promise that continues today — to provide the highest quality of cancer care to everyone in the Santa Barbara community, regardless of means.

When Lillian Taylor Converse was diagnosed with cancer, she had to travel to Los Angeles for her treatments. Though she knew there was little chance of her own recovery, she had a strong desire to help others with the disease, so her husband, Elisha Converse, provided a generous gift to purchase a one-million-volt x-ray machine to establish the Cancer Foundation. Lillian’s physician, Dr. Henry Ullmann, was able to treat cancer patients in Santa Barbara, which established the community as the leading provider of cancer care on the Central Coast.

​The generosity exhibited by the Converse family has grown into a community tradition with a 74-year history of advancing the diagnosis, treatment, prevention and cure of cancer for all patients in our community. Today the physicians and staff of the Ridley-Tree Cancer Center assist those on the journey with, through and beyond cancer, while the Cancer Foundation maintains its singular focus on fundraising and grant making in support of this important work.