The mission of the Washington Health System Foundation is to foster philanthropic relationships to support Washington Health System’s commitment to healthier communities.
Vision: To be the preeminent local Foundation that empowers donors to achieve healthier communities.
Our History
Established in 1992, Washington Health System Foundation helps financially support Washington Health System, a non-profit integrated healthcare system that depends on the community’s charitable giving to fulfill its mission to provide great patient care.
The Foundation raises funds through:
- Donations, grants, and sponsorships by individuals, organizations, and corporations.
- Yearly giving campaigns that ask families, friends, and community members to support the health system.
- Special capital campaigns that raise money for construction projects to better meet our community’s health needs.
Washington Health System Foundation is a 501 (c)(3) charitable organization, and all contributions to the Foundation are tax-deductible.
- The Foundation has shown a continued increase in gifts received from approximately $900,000 in 1994 to over $2.7 million in 2021. In FY 2021, The Foundation’s fundraising ratio of 24.31% (meaning it only costs about 24 cents to raise a dollar) is much lower than the national norm.
- The Foundation’s planned giving program that has realized more than $7.5 million since 1999.
- In that same period, the grant writing program that has received over $23.5 million from private and corporate foundations as well as state and federal government funding.
Washington Health System Foundation has conducted numerous capital campaigns over the course of its history. In the past forty years, over $25 million has been raised for capital projects and improvements.
Renewing Our Commitment, a campaign to support the creation of a Cancer Treatment Center was conducted in the mid-1980’s and raised $2.4 million.
Campaign for the 21st Century was conducted in the early 1990’s and raised $3.1 million to support the construction of a new wing at The Washington Hospital.
The Campaign for Donnell House, to support the establishment of a residential hospice facility was conducted in 2000 and raised $3.2 million.
Building on our Promise raised more than $11 million to build, equip and furnish two new Hospital wings including the E. Ronald and Constance Salvitti Emergency Care Center, the Ralph B. and Carol J. Andy Critical Care Center, new operating rooms, and a new storeroom.
Stout Conference Center was created to provide WHS’s governing boards, medical staff, employees and our community with a first class educational and meeting facility along with an incident command center used to coordinate local response to disasters in our community. Opened in May 2013, almost all of the $966,000 for the Stout Conference Center was provided through charitable gifts.
The Rice Energy Family Simulation Center opened in September 2015. The Simulation Center uses life-like patient simulators to teach School of Nursing students and Health System clinical staff critical skills without putting real patients in danger. The patient simulators are realistic wireless mannequins which approximate complex, lifelike health conditions. The center has 14 full-body simulators, including a pregnant patient who delivers a fully operational newborn simulator, a premature baby, a 1-year-old child, a 5-year-old child and a trauma patient. Simulation allows learners to safely recognize, make clinical decisions and use real equipment to treat serious medical conditions that they may not experience during their clinical education. Skills learned through simulation directly benefit patients by improving their safety, treatment and recovery.
The Families Begin Here Campaign created the CARE Center for Family Birth and Women’s Health. This project completely re-constructed the obstetrics unit: Labor and Delivery, Post-partum and women’s services, the nursery, waiting area and entrance to the Center. This campaign raised more than $4 million and opened in August 2019.