 |
||||||||
 |
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
TGH recruits big-ticket donors
By BILL VARIAN
© St. Petersburg Times, TAMPA -- With its own health seemingly on the mend, Tampa General Hospital has embarked on an ambitious new fundraising campaign targeting the rich as part of its road map to recovery. Through its fundraising arm, Tampa General is soliciting membership in the Gordon Keller Society, named for the Tampa businessman and philanthropist for whom the hospital originally was named nearly a century ago. The price of admission is at least $100,000, which can be given in increments over 10 years. Members are asked to become ambassadors for the hospital. Their money goes to the Tampa General Hospital Foundation, which can spend it, more or less, as it sees fit. It will be used to improve care for the poor, to advance research and to train future medical workers, organizers say. So far, the campaign has netted 10 members in two months, said foundation executive director Trudy Holden, largely through recruitment sessions held over breakfast at the hospital. "I'd say the reaction has been extremely favorable," Holden said. The effort reflects a dramatic remake for the foundation, not to mention the hospital, which had been suffering million-dollar losses until a turnaround starting late last year. The foundation has existed since 1974, but largely as a "friend-raising" body. About two years ago, Salomon Smith Barney senior vice president James Warren III was recruited as chairman for the private, non-profit to change that. The hospital had little in the way of endowment money to pay for new capital projects or to pay bonuses for nurses, for example. Most of the private contributions it received were targeted toward specific causes. Warren began seeking new board members for the foundation with a specific interest in people who knew how to raise money. One of them was Bob Thomas, a retired businessman and philanthropist, whose family owns much of the land near the springs that feed the Hillsborough River. Thomas was reluctant at first to join. Nearing 77 and in flagging health, he said he wasn't sure he could be of much help. But he had also paid many visits to Tampa General since the 1950s, when he was diagnosed with the polio that would force him to use walkers and wheelchairs. He returned with a suggestion. "He said what we need to do is develop a group of community leaders who will take emotional ownership of the hospital," Warren said. "We want them to speak of it, to use it, promote it and financially support it." He proposed the society. Holden and her staff did some research, which led her to Gordon Keller, a former clothing merchant, civic leader and philanthropist who died in 1909 at the age of 44. Keller was remembered for championing quality health care for the poor and because of his charity to the needy. After his death, civic leaders took up a collection in his name which was used a year later to build a 32-bed hospital on North Boulevard, which later became part of the old Florida State Fairgrounds. Gordon Keller Memorial Hospital moved to Davis Islands in the mid 1920s as the anchor of a new residential development and ultimately was renamed Tampa General. The foundation held its first society recruiting breakfast in March, inviting a small group of people carefully chosen for their wealth and willingness to spend it on good causes. Another followed May 15. They were served eggs and bacon, sweet rolls and juice, over nice tablecloths in a meeting room overlooking the river. They were told of the hospital's role training health care workers and its mission of treating the poor, Thomas said. They were assured that the hospital was recovering financially and would prosper with their support. How exactly do you ask a person to give $100,000? "You ask them, and you don't blink," said retired businessman Bob Thomas. "They blink, but you don't blink."
 © 2006 • All Rights Reserved • Tampa Bay Times
490 First Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111 
|
From the Times |
