Mayo Clinic achieves new levels of excellence in service to humanity

Mayo Clinic announced today that it raised $1.35 billion in its first comprehensive fundraising campaign, surpassing the goal of $1.25 billion.

“Philanthropy continues to be essential to Mayo’s mission and future.”

Though campaigns of this size typically take seven years to achieve, The Campaign for Mayo Clinic was a five-year initiative. Mayo embarked on this campaign to raise philanthropic support to accelerate innovations in clinical practice, education and research that have the potential to revolutionize medicine in the 21st century. Begun in 2005, the campaign secured gifts for Mayo’s endowment and support for new and current activities on all three Mayo campuses — Rochester, Minn.; Jacksonville, Fla.; and Scottsdale/Phoenix, Ariz. — and the Mayo Health System.

“We exceeded our goal despite the unanticipated economic crisis that hit this country when we still had a year and a half to go,” says John Noseworthy, M.D., president and CEO of Mayo Clinic. “Surpassing this goal is important since Mayo Clinic’s business and mission — ‘to provide the best care to every patient every day’ — is rooted in providing high-quality care, education and research. The campaign’s success is a reflection of the trust patients and the public have in Mayo Clinic. People from all walks of life find answers here, and they want to perpetuate Mayo’s mission.”

“We received gifts from more than 286,000 benefactors during the campaign,” says James Lyddy, Ph.D., chair, Mayo Clinic Department of Development. “The successful campaign better positions Mayo to achieve and thrive in its mission in the short term and long term. Transformations made possible by our grateful benefactors already are being realized.”

Here are examples:

• Discovery and Innovation Fund: With the majority of this fund supported by philanthropy (70 percent), several of the 36 projects funded to date have led to potential new diagnostic and therapeutic applications. One outcome is the identification of compounds for potential new drug therapies to treat depression. Another is the development of a noninvasive approach to screen for tumors of the entire digestive tract.
• Mayo Clinic Schulze Center for Novel Therapeutics: This virtual three-site center is translating laboratory findings into vanguard methods to treat cancer. Examples include immunotherapy to treat prostate cancer and the use of the measles virus to treat mesothelioma.
• Mayo Clinic Robert and Arlene Kogod Center on Aging: In this innovative center, specialists converge to improve the quality of life as people age, with the goal of longer and healthier lives for everyone. The center focuses on clinical interventions to delay cardiovascular disease, dementia, mobility disorders, strokes and metabolic diseases.
• Mayo Clinic W. Hall Wendel, Jr. Musculoskeletal Center: This new center brings together 47 surgical and clinical consultants in one location convenient to the 66,000 patients who are seen annually for ambulatory issues. Patients and family members can gain in-depth knowledge about their conditions and confidence in self-care at a progressive, new patient education center.
• Individualized Medicine: A person’s unique genetic blueprint can determine predisposition to specific illnesses and how an individual’s body will respond to disease and treatments. Mayo Clinic researchers are working fervently to unlock 0.1 percent of people’s genetic makeup that holds the key to individuality. With this information, physicians can predict and prevent illness. They also can remove the guesswork from treatment options and determine by genetics what course of action has the highest likelihood of success for each person. Already, lives have been saved through this practice.
• Mayo Clinic T. Denny Sanford Pediatric Center: This all-in-one subspecialty pediatric clinic cares for more than 46,000 children and their families who come to Mayo Clinic each year. Health practitioners worldwide travel to Rochester to experience the center’s reassuring environment and special features and take back ideas to apply at their practices. Mayo Clinic and Sanford Health in South Dakota also have embarked on an unprecedented research collaboration to improve pediatric medicine.
• Mayo Clinic Hospital in Florida: With its 214 beds and 22 operating rooms, the hospital offers care in more than 35 medical and surgical specialties. The hospital opened in a fully integrated medical campus in Florida with both inpatient and outpatient services in one location. This integrated environment fosters teamwork and stronger collaborations among physicians, researchers, educators and other clinical professionals.
• Gabriel House of Care: This 30-bedroom hospitality house will be built on Mayo Clinic’s campus in Florida for transplant and radiation therapy patients. It is a collaborative project between Mayo Clinic and St. Andrew’s Lighthouse, a Florida organization that provides housing to patients and their families. Groundbreaking for the project tentatively is set for March 2010.
• Village at Mayo Clinic: Patients who are receiving ongoing cancer treatment or are awaiting transplant surgery now have serene on-campus housing and amenities on the Mayo Clinic Hospital campus in Phoenix. The first three southwestern-style casitas and the Brusally Community House have opened. When completed, the village will accommodate 70 patients and their caregivers. This philanthropically-supported activity is a collaboration with Arizona Transplant House and the American Cancer Society.
• Professionalism and Bioethics Program: This program, supported entirely by philanthropy, perpetuates the Mayo Clinic Model of Care. It nurtures wisdom about the behaviors of bedside manner and educates students about professional bioethical responsibility.
• Professorships: During the campaign, 54 new professorships were established by generous benefactors. Named professorships represent the highest academic distinction at Mayo Clinic. Because they are endowed, named professorships provide a source of support in perpetuity for pathbreaking initiatives in patient care, education and research.

The Campaign for Mayo Clinic upholds Mayo’s commitment to achieving ever-higher standards of patient care, education and research. It is enabling Mayo’s mission-centric priorities to be realized, providing a foundation for the future of medicine, transforming health care education and translating medical research into patient care.

“It has been an honor to help Mayo Clinic achieve new levels of excellence in service to humanity,” says J.W. Marriott, chair, The Campaign for Mayo Clinic, and chairman and CEO, Marriott International.

“This is a time to celebrate success and to thank those who are making all this possible. But it’s also a time to look ahead and set new goals,” says Michael Camilleri, M.D., medical director, Mayo Clinic Department of Development. “Philanthropy continues to be essential to Mayo’s mission and future.”

“As a not-for-profit organization, the funds generated from The Campaign for Mayo Clinic are integral to meeting the needs and expectations of patients for the next 100 years and beyond,” says Dr. Noseworthy. “The campaign is one of the things Mayo is doing to sustain its mission — developing new models of care delivery; ensuring that we provide the highest quality, most affordable care is another. This is all part of transforming Mayo Clinic for this century — while retaining the core values that the needs of our patients come first.”