Mayo Clinic Trustees Launch Public Phase of $1.25 Billion Philanthropy Campaign

(mdash) Mayo Clinic's Board of Trustees today publicly announced Mayo Clinic's first comprehensive development campaign, including a $25 million leadership gift from the campaign's volunteer chair, emeritus trustee Bill Marriott.

The Campaign for Mayo Clinic is a five-year effort to raise $1.25 billion in philanthropic support for medical research, education and clinical practice innovations that have the potential to revolutionize medicine in the 21st century as Mayo's founders did in the 20th century. Begun quietly in 2005, the campaign has raised $965 million to date for activities on all three Mayo campuses — Rochester, Minn.; Jacksonville, Fla.; and Scottsdale/Phoenix, Ariz. The funds will support Mayo Clinic's strategic priorities, including:

* Quality: Providing the best and safest care with excellent service while reducing costs.

* Integration: Coordinating not only at the care-team level, but across Mayo's three campuses, as a learning organization to ensure that advances are communicated more rapidly throughout the Mayo system and to the global medical community to benefit patients everywhere.

* Individualized Medicine: Using genomic medicine to predict which patients are at highest risk for particular diseases, to strengthen prevention and screening for those conditions, to provide earlier and more accurate diagnosis and to take the guesswork out of treatment options, choosing therapies tailored to the individual's genetic makeup for maximum effectiveness.

* Science of Health Care Delivery: Using system engineering to improve the way care is delivered, redesigning how and where patients get care.

The majority of the Marriott gift, $15 million, supports genomic medicine, creating the Marriott Individualized Medicine Program, which focuses on mitochondrial, cardiovascular and bipolar diseases. It also includes a regenerative therapy initiative, with an emphasis on heart regeneration, as well as infrastructure and education resources for Mayo's broader individualized medicine priority.

"Several generations of my family have been touched by the care and healing of Mayo," Marriott explains. "My family will always be grateful to Mayo for the impact it has had on all our lives, and now we have an unprecedented opportunity to partner with them in bringing hope and help for generations to come. Together we can speed the developments of tomorrow's lifesaving treatments."

"Mayo Clinic exists today because of philanthropy that supported an extraordinary vision of medicine," says Denis Cortese, M.D., Mayo Clinic's president and chief executive officer. "In 1919, nearly 20 years before their deaths, our foundersgave their estates to form a foundation to ensure that the revolution they had begun with the integrated group practice of medicine would continue beyond their lifetimes. Mayo Clinic's trustees are stewards of that legacy, and through The Campaign for Mayo Clinic they are providing leadership to enable Mayo to transform medicine in the 21st century."

The Campaign for Mayo Clinic upholds Mayo's commitment to achieving ever-higher standards of patient care, education and research. "It addresses urgent opportunities that Mayo is uniquely positioned to achieve," says James Lyddy, Ph.D., chair, Mayo Clinic Department of Development. Mayo cares for more than half a million people every year from around the world, including generations of families; has a data trust of medical records that are vital to medical research; and trains students who become tomorrow's physicians and health care providers. "Mayo is uniquely positioned to transform medicine, and with that comes an enormous promise to relieve the burden of illness and disease."

As The Campaign for Mayo Clinic begins its public phase, John Noseworthy, M.D., a Mayo Clinic neurologist and the medical director for Development, says more than 100 volunteer leaders, members of its Leadership Councils, have gathered from across the United States to learn more about Mayo's strategic priorities and how they can help contribute to achieving the vision.

"This is Mayo's first-ever campaign, but we understand that the last 20 percent of a campaign goal is typically the most difficult," Dr. Noseworthy explains. "That's why we've brought our Leadership Council members together, and the trustees have gone public with our goal, to engage a broad coalition of patients and supporters whose lives have been touched by Mayo. We have been gratified at the generous response of our benefactors to date, as they have welcomed opportunities to partner with us to help patients throughout Mayo and around the world. We're confident that as more people become aware of the campaign through its public phase, we can meet the financial goal that will enable Mayo to achieve its matchless vision for 21st century medicine."

The Mayo Clinic Board of Trustees, a 30-member group of public representatives and Mayo physicians and administrators, is responsible for patient care, medical education and research activities at Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville; Rochester; and Scottsdale/Phoenix.

To learn more about The Campaign for Mayo Clinic, visit www.mayoclinic.org/campaign.