wellness:

Karen Rendleman: the driving force behind health-care needs at UVa Health Foundation
By M. Grace Maselli
Our work represents fundraising with a purpose, says Karen Rendleman, associate vice president, University of Virginia Health System Development. Rendleman has devoted her career to raising money for education, research and clinical care at UVas academic medical center, otherwise known as UVa Health System. With more than 20 years of experience in fundraising, Rendleman serves dual roles at UVa. In addition to her position at the helm of the Health System Development Office, she also serves as executive director of the UVa Health Foundation. The foundation board, formed in 2002, assists with fundraising efforts and provides guidance to UVA Health System leadership on fundraising strategy. Our trustees are strong advocates for the UVa Health System in this community and beyond, says Rendleman, whose background is in corporate and foundation fundraising. Collaboration between philanthropists and medical professionals can be a key driver behind life-saving patient outcomes. In turn, Rendleman and the Health System Development Office work to foster these partnerships. Fundraising is a relationship-building business, she explains. Often we serve as facilitators between professionals doing the research and providing patient care, and individuals who want to make a difference in that space. We follow a given donors lead someone who usually expresses interest in a particular area of research or clinical carethen we help to forge a connection to that related work here at UVa, Rendleman elaborates. For example, she cites a UVa physician Charlottesville Woman researcher focused on a clinical trial for peanut allergies, which is a big problem for many children and their families. Weve been able to connect this researcher with parents who want to learn more about how the trial can potentially help their children, she notes. Rendleman is acutely aware that fundraising in healthcare is unique because of its intrinsic societal value. So many lives have been touched by disease, notes Rendleman, married to Luke, a small business owner in Charlottesville. Rendleman and her husband have two children, a son, who recently completed his freshman year at UVa, and a daughter, a high school senior currently considering her college optionsone of which might actually be medicine. People want to give back to help fight life-threatening illnessto help change the fates of future generations, she adds. According to Rendleman, Disease diagnoses often leave people or families feeling a loss of control over their situations. When people can donate to research programs or clinical initiatives it goes a long way toward helping them regain a sense of control. It gives people a tangible way to express gratitude to the physicians and nurses whove helped them or their families. It can also provide a measure of comfort to families who have experienced a loss. Rendleman cites the annual Charlottesville Womens Four Miler as a case in point. The biggest all-womens race in Virginia, the Womens Four Miler, sponsored by the Charlottesville Track Club, directs all proceeds to support the UVa Cancer Center Breast Care Program and breast cancer research at UVa. Women are literally running for themselves or for those in their lives who have been affected by breast cancer or another cancer. Its a very moving and powerful experience, not only for the runners, volunteers and other supporters but for our cancer doctors and nurses who are on hand to share in the experience. Measured by any objective benchmark, Rendlemans highly strategic fundraising campaigns have a history of delivering strong results. In particular, the team laid out a long-term fundraising campaign that continues to balance strategic planning with the Health Systems new, emerging priorities. She and her more than 40-person teams work plays to the unique characteristics of an academic medical center like UVAa teaching hospitalthat supports three distinct areas: education, research and clinical care. We were fortunate to hit our campaign goals early, says Rendleman. That enabled us to add new, developing priorities, such as support for a compassionate/end-of-life initiative, as well as an expanded neuroimaging program. Recently the UVa Health System launched a comprehensive strategic planning process to also incorporate a new push for clinical research in cancer, cardiovascular medicine and the neurosciences. The hallmark of a strong philanthropic campaign is to set goalsbenchmarksbut also to build in flexibility where possible, she adds. Rendleman attributes campaign success to a few pivotal things: We received some extraordinary gifts early on in the campaign, before the market downturn in 2008. We also had strong support

Courtesy Photo from our leadership in the UVa Health System and from our UVa Health Foundation trustees, who have been both very generous in terms of financial support and tremendous community advocacy for the UVa Health System. The story of support for the UVa academic medical center is, of course, one of training medical and nursing professionals. For physicians, this means medical school and graduate medical training, the latter where residents work closely with attending physicians for three or more years beyond medical school, she explains. The top-notch nursing program produces skilled nurses, nurse practitioners and the next generation of nurse leaders, who will help bridge the growing shortage of health care providers. Many of our faculty are also researchersprofessionals motivated to find a better treatment or cure for the diseases they treat on a daily basis, she adds. Our nursing staff and other allied health professionals, including respiratory therapists, chaplains and others are all part of the team. This gives us a varied source of

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funding needsfrom scholarships for our students and research support for clinical trials, to support for patient care initiatives and building projects, Rendleman adds. I am particularly proud of our teams involvement in the fundraising for the Emily Couric Clinical Cancer Center, which was designed as a place of hope and healing. All of us will also be very excited to dedicate our new UVa Childrens Hospital building in 2014. None of this would have been possible without the generous support of many, many people as well as corporate and foundation donors. Besides excellent relationship-building skills, the mark of effective philanthropic fundraising is a desire to make things happen, Rendleman says, a bias for action is important. Action, however, must be considered in the context of laying out a strategy to move a relationship forward, which can be very complex. We often have to involve a number of people to help make the case for why someones support will make a difference, she explains of the multi-layered approach. As important, Rendleman cites empathy as a vital component of the collective philanthropic profile. Often we are dealing with individuals whose lives have been dramatically changed as a result of a diagnosis. The people involved in this work understand on an emotional level the kind of impact this has.

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