Hospitals look to community to reach goal
Troy 100 Challenge makes smaller gifts count
TROY, N.Y. >> When the Collar City’s two hospitals fell under the new umbrella of St. Peter’s Health Partners when it was formed in 2011 out of the merger of three area healthcare organizations, officials knew one of the biggest challenges they faced was to remain sensitive to the needs of the community as they looked to revive the aging facilities.
As the first of what was billed as a three-phase master plan for Troy’s facilities winds down and officials begin to look forward to the opening next month of the new Heinrich Medicus Pavilion at Samaritan Hospital, the partnership continues to look into the future of Collar City healthcare. Meanwhile, the group’s philanthropic arm is also winding down a three- year campaign to raise $25 million towards the cost of the $99 million plan, which also included construction of a new parking garage that opened in June 2015 on the Samaritan campus.
“Now, the trick is finishing it,” Peter Semenza, vice president for philanthropy for St. Peter’s, said during an interview last week. “We are in the home stretch.”
Semenza admitted St. Peter’s
was very aggressive in setting such a lofty fundraising goal, with the standard in philanthropy being to raise no more than 12 1/2 percent of a project’s cost, but donors such as Medicus, a retired professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and heir to a German industrial fortune who gifted $10 million to the campaign before his death in February, made the goal achievable. Now, though, they’re looking to the other end of the fundraising spectrum to bring the campaign to a successful conclusion.
The Troy 100 Challenge has already raised more than $110,000 since being launched earlier in the year, and Semenza expects to build on what has already been more than 500 donors, many of whom made multiple $100 gifts to symbolize their relationships with the hospitals, such as the number of children born there.
“The one thing we were missing was that community level of support,” Se-
menza explained. “This was an attempt to say every dollar counts and as many $100 gifts as we can pile on top of one another is going to help us get towards the finish of this campaign.”
While a formal ribboncutting ceremony for the new pavilion is not expected until late spring, officials said the building will begin seeing patients within the next few weeks, with the expected opening of the new Emergency De-
partment. Other parts of the facility, which will also feature intensive care units with large private rooms, improved progressive care units, medical and surgical units designed to improve staff efficiency, and private rooms that provide staff unobstructed observation from nursing stations and corridors, will be opened every few weeks in the months leading up to the ribboncutting ceremony.
“I’ve been in this busi- ness for 28 years,” Semenza said. “I’ve built some great stuff across the street here at St. Peter’s. This rivals all of it. It’s new. It’s unbelievable.”
The project has progressed with little problem, though the realignment of the two facilities, with St. Mary’s transitioning into primarily an outpatient facility, aroused some fears in the community that St. Mary’s would be abandoned. Once that transition took place in October 2016, however, those fears mostly disappeared, helped by such moves as relocation of the renamed Hildegard Medicus Cancer Center from Samaritan Hospital into larger facilities and an accompanying planned expansion of services.
Semenza said he and other officials both understood and appreciated the concerns expressed in the months leading up to the realignment.
“You’re looking at two hospitals that have been in that community for 150 years, and everybody has ‘ their hospital,’ Semenza said. “People want to stay in their community, instead of crossing that river and coming over to Albany.”
Now, as donors respond to outreach that included both a 60,000-piece mailing and a social media campaign, they are expressing their appreciation of the improvements, according to Ryan Parker, a major gifts specialist in the partnership’s Center for Philanthropy. Parker also pointed out that of the donors to the Troy 100 campaign, as many as 90 percent had never given to support the hospitals in the past.
“I think that speaks to both how much this project resonates with them and knowing what it means to the community,” Parker said.
The project and fundraising campaign also has strong support within the local business community, with Tom Amell, CEO of Pioneer Bank, co-chairing the steering committee for the Troy 100 Challenge.
“As a local business leader, it was important for me and my company to demonstrate our commitment to being a part of this community effort,” Amell said in a statement provided by St. Peter’s, “as well as the future of providing healthcare in our area.”
That commitment was shared by Stephen Bouchey, president and CEO of the Bouchey Financial Group, who put up $25,000 as a personal challenge to match 250 gifts. Semenza said that as much as St. Peter’s appreciates its larger donors, though, it also appreciates the personal relationships it has built with people who can only make a more modest gift.
“With this campaign, we’re just trying to reach out and let everybody know every dollar counts. Onehundred dollars today can ensure healthcare for the next 100 years, because this building will take our healthcare services out another 100 years.
“This is not just about building a building. It’s about building a facility that’s consistent with the care we give. I think, at the end of the day, the community gets a great hospital.”
For more information on the Troy 100 Challenge or the Troy Master Facilities Plan, visit http:// troy 100 challenge.org.