DAP Health Chief Development Officer Chris Boone is living proof that what doesn’t kill you makes you bigger, better, stronger.

Words by Kay Kudukis

Chris Boone is a Pacific Northwest native born in Tacoma, Washington. Growing up, his front yard was the Puget Sound, a labyrinth of estuaries and major ports where hundreds of thousands come to whale watch. The city of over 250,000 people is backdropped by the majesty of snowcapped Mount Rainier.

Summers were spent camping with extended family. Water wasn’t just all around them, it was in Boone’s DNA. His dad was a swimmer and diver in high school, and Boone followed suit, swimming and playing water polo. From a young age though, he aspired to be a lawyer. “For some reason, I thought that was a noble cause,” he says with a chuckle.

By 1994, the 40-year-old family dry cleaning business his father had inherited from his parents was in dire need of costly upgrades, so they retired it. Dad took a job in demolition and construction, and moved his clan to nearby Puyallup, where he and his wife felt their boys would get a better education. The population was less than 50,000, but every year, people flooded in for the Washington State Fair.

A Life-Changing Event

Eldest brother Nick was almost 16 when he and Dad built a potato cannon. Made from PVC pipe, it’s four or five feet tall. The bottom end is capped and has an igniter. Inside, there’s a flint and a common combustible — perhaps hairspray or WD40. You drop your projectile (the aforementioned potato) in the gaping end. Even using the weakest fuel, the velocity of a potato cannon is 62.4 miles an hour. The sequence: igniter, flint, spark, combustion, boom. Unless something goes wrong.

The night before 13-year-old Boone would suffer a life-changing accident, his father and brother had gotten the flint wet on the ignitor of the cannon, leaving it unable to spark.

The next evening, alone in his parents’ garage, Boone decided to look down the barrel of the cannon to check if the flint was dry. His foot inadvertently tapped the ignitor, and the flint sparked. Combustion. Boom. The potato rocketed through the pipe, point-blank into his left eye.

He was in two hospitals, and a trauma unit, where he was kept for observation. When the eye didn’t rally, the doctors replaced it with a prosthetic. There were reconstructive surgeries over time, and then life went on. The aforementioned bigger, better, stronger.

Coming Out and Unconditional Love

Boone was involved in sports and student government, and was well-liked by all in high school. However, he kept a close inner circle, including a special tight triangle that remains so to this day: one guy and one girl he hung out with when he wasn’t in the water or working after class and on weekends at McDonald’s.

His guy BFF came out at 17, first to Boone. Then he was just out. Nothing catastrophic happened. Boone found that as terrifying as it was joyful. “This meant I had the support system,” he recalls. “And that freaked me out, because I could actually do it too.” So, he came out as well, but only to his two besties his senior year.

Living Authentically

As a freshman at University of Washington (UW) in Seattle, Boone was finally ready to live authentically. Brother Nick was a junior there, living at a fraternity. Boone was afraid to tell him he was gay in person. “So, I sent him an email late at night from my dorm room,” he recalls.

Not much later, Nick called. It wasn’t about the email, although he’d read it. Nick’s two best friends from high school, now fraternity brothers, had been in a car crash. One was dead, the other in critical condition. Nick said what he needed to say, and what Boone needed to hear: “You’re my brother. It doesn’t matter. I love you.”

Sophomore year, after a visit home, Boone left a coming out note for his parents. They didn’t throw a parade, but they loved their son, too. They came to accept Boone and the man with whom he would later spend 12 years, four of them married.

After graduating with a major in English, Boone ironically got a job at the international law firm Perkins Coie, working for a little over a year in the records room for the trademark group. He got certified as a paralegal at UW Extension, and moved into a paralegal assistant position within the patent group.

“I eventually made my way to HR, and was the first hired diversity coordinator for the firm,” he says proudly. Then he adds, “Law firms are built for attorneys to benefit attorneys, and I always want to align myself with a mission that gives back — a mission that aligns with my personal values. So I took that next step and used what I had learned there for my next chapter.”

The Sharp Turn into the Nonprofit World

Everything finally aligned in 2008 with what was initially meant to be a one-year temp position at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. In his second year of what would become seven spent there, Boone received a nonprofit management certificate from UW Extension. “That was a great opportunity to learn about nonprofits in general,” he explains.

In his last year, he’d worked his way up to associate communications officer as part of the Grantee and Partner Communications team. Sadly, a restructuring then caused his department to become redundant.

Parallel to his time at the Gates Foundation, Boone joined the board of governors of the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), eventually rising to its board of directors, serving both bodies for six years each while also chairing the board’s major donor committee during his final two years.

What drew Boone to the volunteer work? “There was this amazing group of volunteers in Seattle and across the country dedicated to improving the lives of millions of LGBTQ people,” he says. “They wanted to have an impact, and they did it while having fun!”

A New Life in California

Boone’s 12-year relationship ended just as he left the Gates Foundation, so he decided to start fresh in California, where he took a position as individual relationships manager at The People Concern (homelessness) in Los Angeles before being tapped as director of development and communications at Los Angeles Youth Network (youth homelessness/foster care).

These two roles were an opportunity to get his feet wet while leveraging the communications and fundraising experience he’d gained from his work with HRC. He also learned that connecting donors to impact, building relationships, and the art of donor strategy were his passions.

In 2017, Boone was offered a position as regional director of development at National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA). By 2022, he’d risen to senior regional director of development for the Western U.S. there, and gotten a Chartered Advisor in Philanthropy (CAP) designation from American College of Financial Services.

Plus, he was in a new relationship with a great guy from Salt Lake City, both engaging in a long-distance relationship during the pandemic. One day, friends alerted him to a newly formed position at DAP Health: assistant chief of philanthropy and presidential priorities.

It All Comes Together

It was the inroad Boone had been dreaming about. The place, the opportunity — everything was falling into place. “DAP Health married my background from health care as a human right with a fight for social justice — like my work at HRC and social services.”

So, when the offer came in, Boone happily accepted. He and his boyfriend moved from Los Angeles and Salt Lake City, respectively, to Palm Springs in November of 2022, happy to finally be living together. The following August, Boone was promoted to his current role as chief development officer.

“DAP Health’s recent expansion has opened more doors for more people,” he says, excitement building with every word. “We’re not an organization serving 12,000 patients anymore. Now we serve more than 85,000 patients. We have a bigger voice. More power and resources to help those we serve.

“The silver lining of the HIV/AIDS plague, if we can call it that, is this holistic model of care, and how we can speak to donors and others about how they can have an even greater impact, and to share that gift.”

Boone is determined to use that bigger voice and all lessons learned to effect even greater change. Thankfully for DAP Health and its patients, he doesn’t see limitations. Only opportunity.