New hospital campaign update
Generosity begins at "home" for Mills-Peninsula's new hospital
Among the most altruistic contributors to the fundraising campaign for the new Mills-Peninsula Medical Center are the very people who will care for patients at the state-of-the-art facility starting this fall.
Mills-Peninsula employees donated more than double what they were projected to give in the first three years of the campaign, according to Sue Covey, campaign director for the Mills-Peninsula Hospital Foundation. “We had a $700,000 goal and actually raised a total of $1.6 million.”
This ended up being the largest employee campaign ever in the state of California, she said.
The overwhelming success of the employee campaign gave the Hospital Foundation a giant first step on which to build as it extended outreach to the physicians and community at large.
“We’re ecstatic that our own employees have been so inspired to give,” Covey said.
She believes their generosity was partially due to the longevity of many employees and their appreciation of what the new facility will mean for their work and their community.
“Our staff knows that their patients will be even better cared for in this new, stateof-the-art facility,” she said, adding that employees of the Mills-Peninsula Medical Group also participated.
In 2007, employees made three-year pledges, most as payroll deductions, to take part in the Employee Campaign.
As their three-year pledges were completed at the end of 2009, they were given the option to extend an additional year, Covey said. New employees were also offered a chance to participate.
Again, the results went far beyond the campaign’s goal.
“We expected to raise somewhere between $70,000 to $100,000 for the additional year. The last time I checked, we were up to $175,000.” Covey said.
“The fact that people from every department want to be part of the excitement is very impressive.”
Lisa Haley, R.N., a nurse at the Peninsula surgery center and member of the Employee Campaign Committee, explained that most of those who participated made three-year pledges by payroll deduction, and those payroll deductions have become a habit.
“It’s so easy to extend them one more year,” she said.
“The great news is that not only have a huge number of people extended their pledges, we’ve attracted a whole group of employees who are new to Mills-Peninsula.
This is a great place to work, and I think the participation proves that.” Covey also attributes the campaign’s success to the person-to-person organization of the campaign.
“We had 250 employee volunteers who asked each other to give as a personal request,” she said, adding that the emphasis was always on voluntary contributions. “Supervisors had no role in asking their staff for pledges. They led by example.”
The payroll deduction option and the fact that employees could donate their paid time off helped make giving relatively easy, Covey said.
“Many employees have 700 hours or more of accumulated paid time off,” Covey noted.
“One employee gave 400 hours. That’s 10 weeks of vacation time. The employee campaign has been an incredible testament to the dedication of the people who work at Mills-Peninsula.”
