Off to a great start: With more than $12.8 million already committed, the Centennial Campaign for Excellence is well on the way to realizing its $25 million goal. Beneficiaries of the effort will be Alta Bates Summit’s new Cardiovascular, Oncology, and Women & Infants Centers for Excellence (COE), plus a number of its ongoing community programs. Because Alta Bates Summit is a not-for-profit medical center, it depends upon private donations to provide the margin of excellence.

“We’re excited by this achievement. Most of the $12.8 million came from people who are closest to the Medical Center: board members, volunteer groups, and longtime donors to Alta Bates Summit. By demonstrating internal support, we can now ask those in the broader community to join us,” says Campaign Chairman Darrell Sooy. “The work of our COE committees is intensifying in the first quarter of this year. We’ve identified urgent needs that we can meet only through philanthropy, and that’s really our focus.”

The Foundation anticipates completing the bulk of campaign fund-raising by early 2006. “You can’t beat raising more than half your goal at this stage,” says Sooy. “We’re tremendously grateful for the support we’ve achieved so far. If we can take that kind of success out into the community, we’ll realize tremendous results.”