Mercy Health Partners
Mercy Health Partners is a 458-bed health system located in Muskegon, Michigan on the west shore of Lake Michigan. It is a part of the Trinity Health System, who recently received a designation by Thomson Reuters as one of the top 10 health systems in the United States based on excellence and quality. Mercy serves a regional population of over 300,000 residents with 3400 employees on staff. They have received many national awards and designations for their high quality of patient care and more specifically for the innovative care in their Heart and Vascular Institute.
Mercy originally began a client relationship with Hillary Lyons Associate more than 15 years ago, as a means to expand their philanthropic results in support of their operations and capital needs. As their Development Council grew they began to initiate a series of two to three year projects to meet specific community needs and to attract major gifts donors to their program. Their projects have included a birth center, heart and vascular institute, diagnostic imaging and most recently a center for comprehensive cancer care, which generated more than $4 million from community donors.
The key to Mercy’s success using the Development Council model has been the time and attention spent training and orienting their volunteers, including attendance at annual training seminars provided by Hillary Lyons, on-site retreats, and continual recruitment and orientation for new volunteers to keep their program vibrant and visible with community leadership. In addition, Mercy has given their development staff the tools to work with a wide range of volunteers by ensuring that each staff member attend Hillary Lyons training seminars, and by holding annual strategic planning sessions for the department facilitated by their assigned consultant.
Today, Mercy is part of a unified community health care system that provides over $10 million annually in uncompensated care; and philanthropy continues to be a core fiscal strategy that allows them to serve all patients in their community.
After 15 years of success, Mercy continues to grow and refine their Development Council comprised of 84 dedicated volunteers, and Hillary Lyons is proud to continue a long term client relationship with an organization committed to their health care mission.
