Members of the Memorial Health Board, Memorial Health Foundation Board and Memorial 2020 Steering Committee gathered to celebrate the achievements of the Memorial 2020 campaign. Attendees were honored for their efforts and diligence in helping the hospital conduct its most successful fundraising campaign in its history. Pictured above, from left to right, are Cara Rambosek, Memorial Health Foundation staff; Henk Berbee, Memorial Health Foundation Vice-Chair and Memorial 2020 Steering Committee; Nikki Conklin, Memorial 2020 Steering Committee Co-Chair and Memorial Health Board of Trustees Chair; Chad Hoffman, Memorial 2020 Steering Committee Co-Chair and Memorial Health Board Trustee; Jon Veith, Memorial Health Foundation Board Trustee and Memorial 2020 Steering Committee; Chip Hubbs, Memorial Health President/CEO; Corry Mason, Memorial 2020 Steering Committee; Craig Baker, Memorial Health Foundation Board Trustee and Memorial 2020 Steering Committee; Evie Collins, Memorial Health Foundation Executive Director; and Bob Whitman, Memorial 2020 Steering Committee.
(Photo submitted)
––––
Memorial Health officials honored members of the fundraising campaign committee for what was called the largest philanthropic campaign in the county’s history.
“It’s stressful to ask for money,” Memorial CEO Chip Hubbs said, of the committee guiding the $4 fundraising portion of the Memorial 2020 building campaign.
At Thursday night’s board of trustees meeting, Hubbs said he was certain the fundraising effort was the largest in the area in the 15 years he had been at the hospital. He later said he believe it to be the largest in county history and attributed its success to the efforts of the campaign committee.
The CEO said that in the planning stages of the campaign, some people said the project had no shot at collecting $4 million in donation. The project currently stands $69,000 short of that goal, a gap officials said should easily be filled with the final stages of the campaign, including a memorial paver program.
Hubbs said many community hospital are financially sound enough to survive year-to-year, but their undoing comes when those operations are faced with aging facilities which require large capital campaigns. The pricetag to update facilities often leads smaller hospitals to be taken over by larger health organizations.
He said the work of the committee and the investment by the community have helped pull together a project that will be historically significant.
“I’m blown away by how generous folks have been,” Hubbs said.
He said Memorial’s $52 million campaign to construct new in-patient and out-patient facilities will help maintain its identity as a community hospital. The remainder of the cost, beyond the fundraising campaign, will be covered by existing hospital funds and county-backed bonds.
“Thank you for helping build a better, stronger community,” Memorial trustee Chad Hoffman said.
Hoffman, a former board chair, said much of the work of the committee is done behind the scenes, and current chairperson Nancy Conklin added that the health system’s senior leadership team and the medical staff contributed the vision to jumpstart the project.
The board also recognized Evie Collins, Executive Director of the Memorial Health Foundation and Senior Marketing Specialist for Memorial Health, for handling the legwork for the campaign.
Collins said it can be difficult to determine how much money to ask for when targeting individual donors. She said she sometimes underestimated the generosity of donors, being handed a $20,000 check after asking for $5,000.
Collins said 929 donors have contributed to the project, the largest being Honda of America at $600,000. She noted that 95 donors have given $10,000 or more to the campaign.
Hubbs added that the employees of the health system also stepped up with significant monetary donations to the project, which is now starting to take shape as the interior of the three-story in-patient tower is being framed and the steel for the frame of the out-patient pavilion is scheduled to be delivered in early February.
“It’s fun now that we can see, at least now, the in-patient building,” Hubbs said.
In other business, the trustees:
-Approved an expenditure of $3 toward funding the Memorial Medical Group, the network of physicians and mid-level providers that staff Memorial operations.
-Finalized 2019-20 board committee appointments.
-Updated the patient experience policy and set patient experience incentive targets.