Investing in worthy cause
Shrine fundraiser connects the dots
This is the third in a fourday series on the role of women who are served by, donate to, work and volunteer at Boston’s St. Anthony Shrine. The downtown landmark is preparing to host its third annual fundraising gala at the Boston Marriott Copley Place tomorrow night.
During her four years at St. Anthony Shrine, Maryanne Rooney-Hegan has hosted a couple dozen luncheons for potential donors in the stately Boston Room on the fifth floor of the Hub landmark.
Guests are served delicious salads whipped up by the shrine’s chef and get to step inside the breathtaking friars’ chapel. Some who visit have never even heard of the shrine — but Maryanne has a knack for getting people to open up their hearts and wallets by the meal’s end.
Recently, she invited a man to lunch who had no connection to the shrine, said the Rev. Thomas Conway. They gave him a tour and explained the work they do. At the end of the visit, the man said, “Can I give a $5,000 check for your work?’’ recalled Conway.
“That’s classic Maryanne. The average development director, you have some swings and misses, but we don’t have swings and misses with Maryanne,” said Conway, the shrine’s executive director. “Maryanne knows who to get in, who to talk to. It’s a very interesting skill set.”
And a vital one. It costs $5.5 million a year to keep the shrine’s doors open. St. Anthony’s doesn’t receive any funding from the Archdiocese of Boston and relies solely on donations, mostly from individuals.
So what’s her secret? “You have to do a lot of listening. You do more listening than you do talking,” said Maryanne, the shrine’s director of development. “It’s connecting dots.”
When Conway first hired Maryanne, he told her he didn’t want to ask for money and didn’t know anything about fundraising. “He is such a natural. I just tell him, ‘Just be you.’ It’s not about asking for money. It’s about building relationships,” Maryanne said. “It’s asking people to invest in the mission. You don’t ask for money. You tell a story.”
Another man who toured the shine donated $50,000 — five times the amount he was originally going to give — after visiting the shrine and learning about its food center and Lazarus Ministry, which provides funeral services for the homeless and abandoned babies.
Every cent donated counts.
Maryanne has helped bring in individual donations of up to $100,000, but her eyes fill with tears recalling Tom, a homeless man who has since died, who walked into the shrine on Giving Tuesday two years ago. “He came in with $2 and he said, ‘Here, the shrine has been so good to me,’” Maryanne said. “You get gifts from captains and kings and you get gifts from people who give you their last dollar.”