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Focus areas include innovation, health equity, environmentalism

By JULIE MINDA

Providence St. Joseph Health has started its first national foundation to generate funding for its top pressing goals and challenges. The Providence National Foundation will raise money to increase access to health care, to focus on pressing needs in mental health, sustainability, health equity, whole-person care and vulnerable communities across the seven western states where the system operates.

Kelley

Laurie Kelley, Providence St. Joseph senior vice president and chief philanthropy officer, heads the Renton, Washington-based foundation. Kelley says the new organization aims to raise between $3 million and $5 million within two years. Once it gains momentum, the Providence National Foundation hopes to raise more than $20 million annually.

Its funding priorities include facilitating the continuing shift from the traditional health care model to a model that is more fully focused on whole-person care; advancing innovation through technology, data and research; leveraging facilities' clinical expertise; addressing the social determinants of health; promoting health equity; and championing environmental stewardship.

The national foundation will complement the efforts of the 40 foundations that operate in the system's local markets.

The national foundation's fundraising "is not at the expense of our local and regional foundation efforts. Providence is investing in its philanthropy teams, realizing that we have an opportunity to grow our results and thus impact more people," she says.

The national foundation will work with local ones to build stronger ties with existing donors and cultivate new donors. It will facilitate increased communication among representatives from these local foundations to foster the sharing of strategies and tools, especially when they have the same fundraising aims.

For about two years, representatives from the system's local foundations have come together monthly in subject matter expert groups to exchange ideas. The collaborative structure helps give Providence's smaller foundations access to the tools and practices of the larger ones.