Winter 2021
Message from the President of Rhode Island and Hasbro Children’s Hospitals
Dear Friend,
I’m very excited about my new role as President of Rhode Island and Hasbro Children’s Hospitals. I have already met many wonderful people on campus and I very much look forward to meeting you.
By way of introduction, I grew up in Rochester, New York, went to school at the University of Rochester and Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, and my wife, Sindy, and I are looking forward to relocating to Rhode Island this spring. My previous position was as Chief Medical Officer and Senior Vice President of Medical Affairs for Tufts Medical Center and Tufts Children’s Hospital in Boston and Professor of Medicine, Public Health and Community Medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine. Prior to Tufts, I spent nine years at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute as the VP for Quality and Patient Safety.
Since February 1, I have been reading bylaws, learning about financials, and most importantly, walking around Rhode Island and Hasbro Children’s Hospitals meeting colleagues and patients. My interactions have shown me that there is an enormous amount of heart and commitment to our mission of delivering health with care. This has added to my enthusiasm to create a plan that continues to distinguish our hospitals as the centers of excellence they are.
Regarding the Rhode Island and Hasbro Children’s Hospitals Volunteer Leadership Council (VLC), I understand that it plays an incredibly important role in strengthening philanthropy. The success that has been achieved in this area in recent years is clearly a testament to the amazing talents and expertise of VLC members like you. Your role as an ambassador in the community is priceless.
I also want to mention that there’s philanthropy in my blood and I’m happy to dig in. For more than two decades, Sindy has been intimately involved in fundraising as a development professional and has taught me a thing or two.
In closing, I look forward to personally thanking you for your involvement and hearing your feedback. I hope that the warmer months ahead will afford us the opportunity to meet in person. In the meantime, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me by phone or email.
With warm regards,
Saul N. Weingart, MD
President, Rhode Island Hospital and Hasbro Children’s Hospital
P.S. The only person who calls me Dr. Weingart is my mother. So… please call me Saul!
Volunteer Highlight
Celebrating Robert J. Manning, President of Gray’s Point Investments and
Chairman of Cherrystone Angel Group
You joined the Board of the Rhode Island Hospital Foundation in 2015. What made you jump at this opportunity?
My wife, Lynn, and I have a strong commitment to charitable organizations. Being engaged with non-profits is an important part of our lives. We recognize that hospitals are some of the most critical institutions in our society. Lynn is co-chair of the Quality Committee at Women & Infants. My day job involves working with many bioscience companies, so when the opportunity came up at RIHF it was a natural fit. I am comfortable with numerous current technologies, and I try to use that expertise to help present the strengths of RI Hospital and Hasbro Children’s to community members. I also sit on the Board of the Rhode Island Philharmonic Orchestra and was the past president of the Rhode Island Historical Society. (Photo: Rob pictured with grandson Henry)
In the fall of 2020, you helped us develop the idea for the March 25, 2021 Rhode Island Hospital Day of Giving – a day-long telethon with WJAR-10. Can you tell us how that came about?
Last fall, our President’s Pursuit of Excellence Committee was looking for event alternatives given the pandemic’s restrictions on social gatherings. Roger Begin shared his past experiences with a telethon he was involved with and this got us thinking. Roger then connected us to Channel 10 and our Day of Giving telethon was off and running.
In our effort to think outside of the box on how to inspire folks to support the telethon – we came up with the idea of creating two pools of matching funds: one from our Board and other VLC members, and the other from hospital physicians. Though the exact mechanisms of applying the matches are still being mapped out, the overall goal is to leverage more gifts from individuals in the broader community. We want to make it very attractive for community members to donate to the hospitals. I hope everyone reading this email will participate in this very special fundraising effort on March 25!
What advice do you have for other members of our Volunteer Leadership Council in their quest to assist in strengthening philanthropy for our hospital?
Running a big hospital is a balancing act between legacy practices and new technologies. It is sort of like making improvements to your plane while you are flying it! It is also a very complex financial enterprise, with federal, state, and private insurance dollars coming in, and a huge need for charitable dollars to help build for the future. To ensure the wide variety of skillsets that is crucial in making decisions, the hospital benefits greatly from having a talented group of volunteer leaders on the Board and serving on committees.
My advice to new members of our VLC is to ask questions about how they can better engage with our hospital’s work. Bring new ideas for fundraising events to the table and assist in identifying the best ways for existing and potential donors to form relationships with the institution. That’s the VLC’s job. It’s a challenging environment out there and it requires VLC members to think differently, unconventionally, or from a new perspective.
If there is one thing you would want the community to know about Rhode Island and Hasbro Children’s hospitals, what would it be?
Rhode Island and Hasbro Children’s hospitals are the most important hospitals in the state and essential to our community’s infrastructure. They operate quietly, and we tend to take them for granted. We shouldn’t. Their work is amazing, and they continue to build on their success. Every day, in every way, we are better for what they do.
When people pose this question to me, I like to ask them “what would it be like without Rhode Island and Hasbro Children’s hospitals? Just think how hard that would be for us. Today, we can get, here in RI, medical care as good as any in the USA. Keeping it that way is hard work, and it is the singular focus of the entire volunteer leadership community of the two hospitals.