No. 372Children’s Hospital Boston

By Meg Sommerfeld

How it reached the top

Last year, Children’s Hospital Boston saw big increases in its large donations.

For example, the number of donors who gave between $100,000 and $500,000 rose from 31 to 46; in the $10,000 to $20,000 range, it jumped from 95 to 157. Janet Cady, president of the trust that raises money for the hospital, attributes the success to specialization. The hospital trains its nine senior major-gift officers to each become experts on two to five departments by shadowing nurses, doctors, and researchers on the job. One major-gifts fund raiser, for example, covers genetics, neurology, neurosurgery, and orthopedics.

In a related move, the hospital three years ago started “Philanthropic Leadership Councils,” which bring together groups of donors to lead fund-raising efforts for a specific medical division of the hospital. So far, there are three councils — for cardiology, developmental medicine, and neurology — and several others are planned. Each has 10 to 25 members, most of whom have given the hospital roughly $25,000 or more. Council members bring in friends and business associates for hospital tours and hold events in their homes that feature presentations by doctors or other hospital employees. The Heart Council, the oldest of

the three, mails its biannual newsletter to 20,000 current and prospective donors, and holds a Valentine’s Day dinner each year to recruit new donors. Biggest fund-raising challenges

Ms. Cady says the organization is looking for ways to sustain its growth. Last year, private donations increased by 30.4 percent. The hospital says it is working hard to strike a balance between time spent attracting major gifts and time recruiting small donations from people who have not previously given. “Our largest dollar growth has been at the major-gift level, and yet our future depends also on generating gifts from a larger number of donors, and focusing on the entry level,” says Ms. Cady.

After the September 11 terrorist attacks

The hospital plans to forge ahead with its campaign to raise $200-million by 2005, which was started last year. “Children are the future of our country, and our mission is to care for children,” Ms. Cady explains. “We think it would be the wrong thing for us to pull back at this point.” She adds that, based on conversations she has had with donors, she believes that “a lot of people will give more, and not just to us but to all charities, because their sense of what matters is renewed right now.”