Worcester Business Journal

14 Worcester Business Journal | March 30, 2020 | wbjournal.com F O C U S H E A L T H C A R E Fixing UMass Memorial's financials e largest healthcare system and employer in Central Mass. hopes a renewed effort on community fundraising will fix its bottom line BY JENNIFER L. GRYBOWSKI Special to the Worcester Business Journal Eric Dickson, UMass Memorial CEO and president PHOTO/TMS AERIAL SOLUTIONS I n fiscal 2019, Worcester nonprofit conglomerate UMass Memorial Health Care narrowed its annual operating losses from $28 million to $10 million, although that only came aer the system sold its pharmacy management unit for $263 million to lessen its overall losses.. In order to get UMass Memorial back in the black for the first time since fiscal 2017, the system's leadership is pushing toward a new, focused effort on community fundraising, hiring Kathleen Driscoll away from the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston to be its new chief philanthropy officer. Driscoll will officially begin April 6, but said she has already been involved in some discussions with her new employer, which is the largest employer in Central Massachusetts with 11,000 workers. "It's an interesting time to be getting started," she said. "We are learning what the strengths and weaknesses are in the system now." Eric Dickson, UMass Memorial president and CEO, said the coronavirus crisis is putting things into perspective. "It's really hard to not look at what's going on today, the challenges the caregivers are going through right now," Dickson said. "We are oen feeling like we don't have the support of the community around us compared to other institutions." Dickson said while UMass is grateful for the few million dollars in donations it garners each year, they don't even compare to hospitals in Boston, who tend to generate tens of millions of dollars in philanthropy every year. "We're kind of living on the edge with our financials," he said. "We were on our third year of operating loss before the coronavirus crisis. We have an obligation to serve the poor and underserved and an obligation to support the medical school." Focused on fundraising UMass Medical Center merged with Memorial Hospital 23 years ago and since then, other community hospitals in Marlborough, Clinton and Leominster have joined up to create a large conglomerate of hospitals and physician groups all with a single mission to improve the health of a diverse population. However, Dickson said with that original merger, philanthropy essentially began to fall apart. "People have the sense we are a part of the state, and we get state funding," he said. "e opposite is true; we fund the medical school. We've never really had a high community support relative to like-size organizations." at's why UMass Memorial decided to launch a new fundraising arm earlier this year and hire Driscoll to lead that initiative. Driscoll "is an amazing woman who has a very impressive background, not just in philanthropy, but in marketing and customer relationships," Dickson said. "We brought her in because we need someone to help people understand just how vital UMMHC is. ere are few regions in the country where there is just one central hospital and employer that is critical to the region." Driscoll started out as a special education teacher, then moved to the corporate world working in advertising, marketing and corporate communications. Most recently, she worked as the secretary for institutional advancement at the Archdiocese of Boston. Driscoll raised $400 million during her time at the Archdiocese, was a member of the Cardinal's Cabinet and Steering Committee and led its first campaign in 17 years, started a new shared service development model, Boston Catholic Development Services, (BCDS) which annually raises over $23 million, and led the Campaign for Catholic Schools, which has raised more than $100 million for the benefit of Catholic education in the Archdiocese of Boston. Driscoll pointed out that in all of her corporate roles, part of the job was to take on volunteer work, and she was happy to do it. "I've always been a mission driven person," she said. "It was a really awesome opportunity to use my business skills for a non-profit purpose." Kathleen Driscoll, UMass Memorial chief philanthropy officer

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