| Subject: Golisano donates $10m each to NFMMC & NU |
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Date Posted: Tuesday, September 17, 11:55:37pm
Author Host/IP: syn-074-070-140-050.res.spectrum.com/74.70.140.50
Niagara Falls Memorial Medical Center (NFMMC) President & CEO Joseph Ruffolo said he had “no idea why” billionaire B. Thomas Golisano asked him to come to Rochester on Tuesday.
“We didn’t know what was going on,” Ruffolo said. “We just got a call saying can you be here at 10:30 a.m. and we thought maybe (the Golisano Foundation) was having a seminar or something.”
When Ruffolo, and others from NFMMC, arrived in Rochester, they found themselves in an auditorium at the Golisano Institute for Business & Entrepreneurship with about 300 representatives of community non-profits from the across upstate and Western New York. Then Golisano took the stage and made an announcement that left his audience stunned.
“The only wealth that you get to keep is that what you give away, so today we’re going to give away some,” Golisano said, his voice choked with emotion.
The former owner of the Buffalo Sabres and the founder of Paychex, a payroll processing company, said, “I can’t take it with me,” as he explained to his audience that he would be giving $380 million to 82 not-for-profits in the Buffalo-Rochester-Syracuse region. Among the Falls’ recipients of Golisano’s generosity, Memorial Medical Center and Niagara University.
Each institution will receive $10 million.
As Ruffolo went to the stage to accept Golisano’s gift, the two men embraced in a hug.
“I was in tears. And he had tears in his eyes too,” Ruffolo said. “The man is an angel. This is by far the largest single gift in Memorial’s history.”
Golisano has already gifted NFMMC $5 million for the Golisano Community Health Center and the Golisano Medical Oncology Center, a joint venture with Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center. The oncology center alone, serves 2,500 patients in the Niagara Region.
“It’s amazing. He is such a generous man,” Ruffolo said. “It’s his passion to increase access to (health) care and we will look to honor that with this latest gift.”
Ruffolo said NFMMC has roughly $58.7 million in capital projects “currently on the drawing board.” The $10 million gift from Golisano, he said, will allow the medical center to leverage additional financing options and move forward with a number of those projects.
NU officials released a statement: “We are incredibly grateful to Mr. Golisano for his continued generosity and expression of confidence in the vision and future of Niagara University and our students,” said the Rev. James J. Maher, C.M., president of Niagara University. “Already with a state-of-the-art integrated science center bearing his name on our campus, this gift is another tremendous manifestation of Mr. Golisano’s abiding commitment to excellence in teaching, research, and service — and the significant role that Niagara University plays in the ongoing transformation of Western New York.”
His pledge to donate $360 million to 82 nonprofit organizations across Western and Central New York on Tuesday nearly doubles the Paychex founder’s lifetime giving, bringing the total to $775 million.
His giving includes more than $41 million in grants made by the Golisano Foundation, which he founded in 1985, primarily to organizations devoted to supporting people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
The $360 million in multiyear awards announced Tuesday range from $250,000 to $20 million each, paid over four to five years. They span health care, education, animal welfare, disability services, and other community needs.
Almost half of the organizations that will receive the donations have been recipients of prior donations from Golisano and his foundation.
The $360 million in donations include $52 million to the Golisano Foundation, an infusion of funding that will increase the foundation’s annual giving from $3 million to $5 million.
“I’m thrilled to provide support to the Upstate New York community, to the region where I built my life and my business,” he said. “I know that there are many organizations doing great work and understand that running a nonprofit is not easy, facing both opportunities and challenges, like raising money.”
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