Charitable giving has taken a significant downturn for the nation's charity hospitals, as donations of at least $1 million to not-for-profit facilities in the first three months of 2007 are down 35 percent from the same period last year.
Factors such as the economy and last year's strength in donations could be reasons behind the decline, said William McGinly, president and CEO of the Association for Healthcare Philanthropy. The organization represents not-for-profit hospitals and has 4,550 members in 2,200 institutions nationwide.
The strength of the economy traditionally has had the largest influence on charitable giving to healthcare organizations, and because the nation’s economy remains strong, giving may increase during the rest of the year, McGinly predicts. Since 1984, there have only been two years – 1987 and 2002 – in which healthcare philanthropy did not increase.
Overall donations to hospitals through rose by 16 percent in 2006, to nearly $7.1 billion, McGinly said. Philanthropy funds help not-for-profits in areas such as providing charity care, construction projects and information technology implementations. While colleges and universities still attract the most charitable funding, a growing amount of philanthropy funding is going to healthcare, McGinly noted.
"The encouraging thing for us is we're seeing much larger donations going to providers," McGinly said. For example, the largest hospital donation ever made occurred just months ago by T. Denny Sanford, chairman and CEO of United National Corp. Sanford gave $400 million to Sioux Falls, S.D.-based Sioux Valley Hospitals and Health System.
Using donor information published by Indiana University's Center on Philanthropy, Healthcare Finance News compiled the following list of 10 of the largest donations to hospitals given in the first quarter of 2007.
| Rank | Donor |
Gift |
| 1 | T. Denny Sanford | $400 million to Sioux Valley Hospitals and Health System |
| 2 | Schmidt Family Foundation | $75 million to Boca Raton Community Hospital |
| 3 | Patrick Soon-Shiong and Family | $35 million to Saint John's Health Center |
| 4 | W. Hall Wendel, Jr. | $27.5 million to Mayo Clinic Rochester |
| 5 | Suzanne S. and Wesley M. Dixon | $19.9 million to Northwestern Memorial Hospital |
| 6 | Donald W. Reynolds Foundation | $12.8 million to Harvard Medical School/Brigham and Women's Hospital |
| 7 | Annenberg Foundation | $10 million to Lankenau Hospital |
| 8 | Essel Foundation | $9.2 million to Columbia University Medical Center |
| 9 | David Rubenstein | $5.5 million to Johns Hopkins Children's Center |
| 10 | Carl and Ruth Shapiro | $5 million to Beth Israel Deaconness Medical Center |
Changes to this story were made on June 12, 2007 at 12:00pm, ET.