Stories of Local Impact: Al and Patti Gustafson, leading with heart

Leaders & Legacies: Stories of Local Impact is an ongoing series brought to you in partnership with the Daily Herald and DuPage Foundation. It highlights the inspiring stories of local individuals, families, and businesses who have made or are making a lasting impact for our community through their generosity and leadership.

The series continues with Al and Patti Gustafson of Woodridge.

Al and Patti Gustafson aren’t afraid to think big.

Through their extensive charitable work, this Woodridge couple is deeply committed to improving the lives of those around them. However, they sensed early on they couldn’t do it alone.

“We have to surround ourselves with people who know more than we do,” Patti said. “Together, we can do so much more.”

Inspired by the legacy of Al’s parents, and later their son Michael, the Gustafsons have collaborated with local organizations to improve access to early childhood education across DuPage County, and partnered with medical centers nationwide to change the landscape of pediatric cancer care.

After nearly two decades partnering with DuPage Foundation, they’re now the spark behind its latest campaign, All In DuPage, to ensure the Foundation can support our community for years to come.

Softball and serendipity

Al and Patti studied accounting at Benedictine University and Indiana University, respectively. Al had already graduated when they met the summer before Patti’s senior year. “Patti played on a summer softball league … and my roommate was her coach,” Al said. “He strongly suggested I come and watch a game because the left fielder was someone I would want to meet.”

They dated long-distance until she graduated. “One time while I was studying for the CPA exam … Al drove the four hours (to Bloomington, Indiana) from Naperville, took me for pizza, and to see the movie ‘Pretty in Pink,’ then drove the four hours home again,” Patti said.

They married in 1989 and worked in accounting before shifting careers. Al went into the ministry, Patti became a first-grade teacher, and they had three children: Ian and twins Bridget and Michael.

Al and Patti served on the board of the Gustafson Family Foundation, founded in 1999 by Al’s parents, Allen L. and Dolores Gustafson, to promote the education of at-risk children. “We wouldn’t have the means to be philanthropic without (my parents),” Al said. “It really began with (them) … and their generous hearts.”

The Naperville couple seeded the foundation with their life savings. Allen, a Swedish immigrant, became a bicycle courier for Cannonball Express, later bought by UPS.

“He got a job as a loader … and worked his way up through the company,” Al said. “It was probably in the mid- to late ’80s when they really started to accrue a fair amount of wealth. UPS did quite well, and so they did quite well. They lived frugally, very much like the millionaires next door.”

Bringing Educare to DuPage County

When Al’s parents established their foundation, focusing on early education was a natural fit.

“My mom had a great love for children,” Al said. “My dad, being an immigrant, felt like education was the best equalizer. In particular, they wanted to open an early childhood education center for working families.”

In 2007, the Gustafson Family Foundation set its sights on bringing an Educare early learning center to the Western suburbs. “This felt like the best way to honor my parents’ legacy,” Al said. After conversations with many municipalities, they settled on West Chicago.

“You can’t go forward and do great things in the world if your stomach’s rumbling and you haven’t learned your ABCs,” Patti said. “We want to see 5-year-olds starting kindergarten happy and ready to learn and they can take off from there.”

The Educare center opened in 2012 as a public-private partnership funded by donations, Illinois early childhood education funding, and federal Head Start and Early Head Start funding. The Gustafson Family Foundation committed $2 million in start-up funds and significant ongoing support.

“It was a big project. It took us many years and a $10 million capital campaign,” Al said.

“(The Gustafsons’) vision went far beyond simply opening a building; they helped create a model of early childhood education grounded in equity, quality, and long-term community investment,” said Marcela G. Sweeney, the center’s executive director. “Because of their leadership and commitment, countless children and families have had access to opportunities and resources that set the stage for lifelong learning.”

The Gustafsons continued to stay involved. “Patti was a weekly library volunteer in our school for many years, building relationships with children and staff and sharing her love of reading,” Sweeney added. “Al served on our board of directors, helping guide the organization with steady leadership and insight. Their involvement was not just generous; it was personal.”

Bright & Early DuPage

In 2011, the Gustafsons learned about DuPage Foundation’s plans to start Bright & Early DuPage, a countywide initiative to fund early childhood collaborations. The Grand Victoria Foundation offered to match up to $1 million in seed funds for the initiative as part of its investment in Illinois community foundations across the state.

The Gustafsons brought the opportunity back to the Gustafson Family Foundation board. “We decided to go for it and, together, we created this $2 million endowment that became the Bright & Early DuPage Fund,” Al said.

Since 2013, Bright & Early DuPage has provided more than $3.6 million in seed funding and ongoing support to launch and sustain eight early childhood collaboratives in DuPage.

The program leverages funding from other sources, including local township boards and state programs, such as Birth to Five Illinois.

From July 2024 to June 2025, the collaboratives referred 788 children for special education or early intervention services, offered hundreds of parent education programs, and screened 3,447 children for developmental delays.

Michael’s master plan

In 2008, the Gustafsons’ focus shifted suddenly when their son Michael was diagnosed with medulloblastoma, an aggressive type of brain cancer, at age 10. He underwent surgery, chemotherapy and radiation. After a year in remission, the tumor returned.

In his final days, Michael requested his brain be donated to research, which he called his “master plan.”

“I’m going to donate my brain to science, then they can use me to find a cure,” Michael said at the time in a video recorded by his family. “That’s my hope.”

With the Gustafsons’ help, Michael founded the Swifty Foundation to raise funds for pediatric brain cancer research and promote postmortem brain tumor tissue collection. “Swifty” was a term of endearment used by Al’s father, Allen.

“We lost Michael in 2013 and our focus every day since has been making his master plan a reality,” Patti said. “It’s been our ‘good grief,’ and it has really helped in that way.”

Many of Michael’s cousins and friends volunteered on Swifty’s junior board, and his siblings, Bridget and Ian, continue to serve on the board. Patti is executive director and Al is board chair.

To date, Swifty has provided more than $7 million in grants for medulloblastoma research and tissue collection.

The Gustafsons formed a special partnership with Dr. Michael Taylor, director of the Pediatric Brain Tumor Research Program at Texas Children’s Cancer and Hematology Center.

“Dr. Taylor got Michael’s tissue and discovered that in children with medulloblastoma, it starts in utero with something kind of like a polyp, and if we can screen for this ‘polyp’ like we do for colon cancer … it could be snipped at some point after they are born before six months old,” Patti said. “They are working right now on finding a biomarker and hopefully one day, not in the too distant future, we will stop this.”

An expanded partnership with DuPage Foundation

By 2017, running Swifty had become full-time work for the Gustafsons. “We just didn’t have time to continue our Gustafson Family Foundation work, and we were falling behind significantly,” Al said.

They decided to transition the family foundation from a private foundation to a $17 million donor-advised fund at DuPage Foundation.

“Nearly a decade later, this remains our largest fund to date,” said Mike Sitrick, DuPage Foundation’s president and CEO.

It was a decision made out of necessity, trust, and a desire to be the best stewards possible of Al’s parents’ legacy.

“We had had such a positive experience working with DuPage Foundation (on the Bright & Early DuPage initiative) that we really felt comfortable,” Al said.

Patti calls the move “the greatest gift to our family.” It allowed her and Al to fully focus on Swifty’s mission.

In 2018, along with 14 other families who had also lost a child to brain cancer, the Gustafsons partnered with researchers to create Gift from a Child, a national initiative to increase postmortem pediatric brain tissue donations for cancer research.

Gift from a Child is a national network of clinical centers consisting of Lurie Children’s Hospital in Chicago and seven others, each serving as regional tissue donation hubs.

To date, 437 families have made tissue donations. In 2022, Gift from a Child became a program of the Children’s Brain Tumor Network at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

“There is a grief to letting go, but the exciting thing for us is seeing how the new leadership will do things for the program that we couldn’t imagine,” Al said.

Going ‘All In’

The Gustafsons’ partnership with DuPage Foundation has only continued to grow. In 2024, they made a lead gift to underwrite the expansion of its Downers Grove headquarters so the space could remain its home well into the future. They also have continued to invest annually in the Foundation’s operations and capacity-building.

Now the Gustafsons are taking a lead role in the Foundation’s All In DuPage campaign. It seeks to raise $25 million to grow our community’s permanent charitable endowment and double the Foundation’s annual discretionary grantmaking to better respond to area needs, as well as $10 million in endowed operating funds to ensure it has the resources to adequately serve our community today and into the future.

The Gustafsons recently committed $1 million from their donor-advised fund to All In DuPage.

“Looking back on our funding of Bright & Early DuPage … the impact is really impressive,” Al said. “So knowing how well that worked made us feel very interested in All In DuPage.”

Rather than contribute outright, the Gustafsons are challenging others to join them in supporting the campaign.

“This time around, we wanted to be the ones saying, ‘We’ll match your contribution.’ Let’s use this million dollars to encourage others to make larger gifts,” Al said.

The Gustafsons will match, dollar-for-dollar, contributions of $250,000 or more from people, businesses, and other foundations made toward All In DuPage, up to $1 million in total.

“This campaign is all about planting seeds today that will continue to grow, so our community can have flexible resources available to meet emerging and changing needs,” Sitrick said. “This will enable the Foundation to be even more responsive and really deliver in areas where our community is looking for us to lead.”

Those who choose to accept the Gustafsons’ challenge may add to any existing unrestricted, field-of-interest, or operating endowment fund of the Foundation, or create a new named fund.

“We learned during the pandemic how quickly needs can change in the county, and how expert DuPage Foundation was in raising the money that they did and also distributing it effectively,” Al said. “Giving them greater capacity to be able to respond swiftly and nimbly just makes all the sense in the world.”

Looking ahead

The Gustafsons see their children’s chosen professions informing their future charitable giving. After working with unhoused people with mental health issues in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Bridget is pursuing her master’s degree in social work. Ian, an attorney with Mississippi Center for Justice, provides free legal services for low-income renters.

“Because of our kids, and also because of the needs that are changing in the world, housing and mental health are two areas that I think in the future (we) … will begin to focus on,” Al said.

It’s a full-circle moment, considering how their work has inspired their children.

“(They) taught me that the most satisfying work is that which helps others,” Ian said. “My parents value listening,” Bridget added. “For all the years they've done community work, they have listened to the needs and desires of the individuals and communities they're serving, understanding that those closest to the issue are nearly always closest to the solution.”

• The Leaders & Legacies series is brought to you by the Legacy Society of DuPage Foundation. Suggestions for future stories can be sent to Kelly Fallon-Wilson, marketing project coordinator, at kelly@dupagefoundation.org.

Interested in learning more about how you can make an impact or create a legacy for your community and favorite causes? Learn more at dupagefoundation.org or contact (630) 665-5556.

DuPage Foundation is located at 3000 Woodcreek Drive, Suite 310, Downers Grove, IL 60515.