Shriners Hospital for Children-Chicago celebrated its 80th anniversary last Sunday, an occasion that drew a few thousand people, many of them former patients, to its Northwest Side grounds.
Dance and music groups performed, each with at least one member who at one time had been treated there, whether for orthopedic damage or spinal cord injury or for reconstructive or craniofacial plastic surgery. And because it is a Shriners hospital, one of 22 serving children around the country, including three with burn centers, patient care was free.
Shriners Children’s Hospitals, a Tampa-based charity, is an outgrowth of the separate Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine — a fraternal organization better known as the Shriners and for members who sport red fezzes and drive funny cars. But even those little cars have more horsepower than the engine that has been driving the hospitals’ fundraising.
But that has begun to change in the last two years.
The hospital network’s development office has hired more staff — bringing its total to seven — and tested more TV advertising. Edgar McGonigal, development director in Tampa, said the charity also is considering launching its first national public fundraising appeal.
“We have never actively sought donations. Most are voluntary,” he said. “And because we were not out there asking people for money, and a lot of other charities were, the perception was that we didn’t need money.”
Adding to the perception was the hospitals’ imposing endowment, $7.9 billion at year-end 2005. Investment returns on that bundle provide 90 percent of the budget for the hospitals, which is around $649 million for 2006, McGonigal said. The rest mostly comes from donations and proceeds from sponsoring the annual college football East-West Shrine Game.
The post-9/11 stock market dropped the endowment to $6 billion and shook the complacency over fundraising. The hospitals didn’t face cutbacks but were asked to hold admission levels steady.
Bequests from late Shriners and others are the predominant source of new donations. But the number of such bequests has been declining, he said, reflecting the limited public exposure of the hospitals’ work and the falloff in Shriner ranks. The fraternity’s membership peaked at about 900,000 in the 1970s; it now is around 411,000.
In 2005, the hospitals started their first annual campaign but directed it primarily at Shriners and patients and their families. It has brought in around $160,000. Given the limitations of that approach, said McGonigal, “We are studying whether to go to the public.”
The hospitals took a first step when late last year they ran a 30-minute TV infomercial in Chicago and a few other markets. The results weren’t promising.
“They didn’t bring in much, about $25,000 in donations,” said McGonigal, noting that didn’t approach the infomercial’s cost.
Nonetheless, the hospitals are considering retooling the ad into 30- or 90-second spots and hiring fundraising advisers.
Twenty years ago, the Orlando Sentinel, a sister newspaper of the Tribune, uncovered fundraising abuses by the Shriners, finding that about 70 percent of the money the fraternity raised for the hospitals went instead for its entertainment, conventions, travel, food and recreation. The organization instituted several reforms and endured an Internal Revenue Service audit that lasted several years. But at the end of the grueling process, McGonigal said, “We got a clean audit.”
Corporate: The Foundation Center reports that U.S. corporate foundations gave a record $3.6 billion in 2005, up 5.8 percent from 2004. A majority of foundations surveyed by the center plan to raise giving in 2006, but a third plan cuts.
On Wednesday, the foundation of the insurer Nationwide said it was giving $50 million over 10 years to Columbus (Ohio) Children’s Hospital.
Grants: Illinois’ Augustana College and Elmhurst College each received $500,000 from the Indianapolis-based Lilly Endowment for programs that encourage students to consider careers in the Christian ministry.
Steppenwolf Theatre Company said it raised almost $22.7 million in its just-ended five-year endowment campaign. The goal had been $21 million.
People: University of Chicago paleontologist Neil Shubin received a joint appointment: provost of the Field Museum and associate dean for organismal and evolutionary biology at the university. … Joffrey Ballet promoted Warren Davis to development director.
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cstorch@tribune.com
