Taylor is a healthcare philanthropy leader who is driven to consistently achieve above and beyond performance in her work, both as a fundraiser and as a leader. Taylor is a highly respected leader among her TGH Foundation colleagues and has formally and informally mentored and coached several on the team. Last year she was promoted to senior director of development to reflect her outstanding work. Taylor has taken advantage of LEAD TGH, a small, exclusive cohort of aspiring TGH leaders that are handpicked and nominated by TGH leadership for their potential growth within the organization. She is also widely respected by the leadership of the service lines that she is assigned to (heart and vascular, and women's and children's) and has done a world-class job of building trusting relationships with physicians, clinicians, and service line leaders within these two critical and growing service lines for TGH that have in turn led to driving transformational gift conversations from multiple grateful patients. Taylor has been a driving force of TGH Foundation's adoption of a comprehensive, strategic approach to engaging grateful patients and families through strategically working with physician partners. Since the adoption of the strategy in 2019, grateful patient and family giving at TGH has increased from $305,000 a year in 2018 to $7.1 million in 2022. TGH Foundation's grateful patient efforts have seen a 200% increase in philanthropy from grateful patients in each of the past three years since the program's inception. Since the start of 2023, through serving as the primary development officer or co-primary development officer, Taylor has raised $8 million, including one gift of $5 million from a grateful patient for the Heart and Vascular Institute, the largest in the institute's history, and a $1 million gift to create a milk lab for the Jennifer Leigh MUMA NICU at TGH. In addition to building fantastic relationships, she has worked with service line leaders to build funding wish lists for these service lines, which had never been created before, and developed service line fundraising progress reports. She also developed and implemented a system of reporting philanthropy progress of referrals to physicians, and a system of stewarding physician partners. Taylor has created more than ten cases for support for the Heart and Vascular and Women's and Children's Institutes, including various centers of excellence within the Heart and Vascular Institute, TGH Children's Hospital Renovation, the neonatal exposure program, cardiac 3D printing heart simulation research, the TGH Children's Hospital pet therapy program, aspirational child life programs like Beads of Courage, and more. Taylor's extraordinary leadership in driving philanthropy for these service lines has allowed these service lines to meet their strategic goals.
During my four years of undergraduate school at the University of Florida, I participated in numerous nonprofit charity events and volunteer fundraising opportunities. Getting involved with these organizations, especially Children's Miracle Network and their Dance Marathon Program, sparked my interest in nonprofit work. During my junior year, I realized I could pursue a career in this field. That led me to changing my major, securing an internship at Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital Foundation during the summer in 2009, and ultimately earning a full-time position in the foundation following graduation.
Starting my career at a children’s hospital provided me the opportunity to meet patient families, hear their stories, and learn medicine all at the same time. To understand the toll illness can cause not only on a patient, but on their loved ones, reinforced how philanthropy can make a special impact clinically and emotionally for families. Healthcare philanthropy, for me, is enabling the community to help find cures and clinical advancements while providing comfort and compassion. The generosity of donors increases the margin for excellence in those areas in a big way.
While working in special events, I had the opportunity to partner with major gift officers on their home hosted events, small, high-level donor gatherings and was always fascinated of how a major or principal gift transcended. In 2015, the leadership at Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital Foundation, Jenine Rabin, created a Foundation Fellowship in partnership with Janet Cady, with Bentz Whaley Flessner, to train team members in major gifts. Shortly after graduating from the inaugural fellowship class, a major gift development position opened, and I applied. I was nervous I would fail in major gift development, but a leader who interviewed me shared “it’s normal to feel you’re three years too early for the job you want.” I got the job and closed a $250,000 gift in the first six months with Jan walking me through every step. I am grateful for the guidance and support that gave me the confidence to pursue major giving development.
It has always been helping others. I’m grateful I found the world of nonprofit philanthropy so early in life, and for the gratitude it has instilled in my life, personally. It’s an honor to work on behalf of clinicians and patient families and to facilitate the goodwill of community on their behalf. I’ve had the privilege of meeting many donors and learning the “why” behind their giving. They are special stories of hope, gratitude, grief, and resiliency. It’s a very special opportunity to help facilitate and enable the motivations of people wanting to help others.
Develop a passion for learning and never stop asking questions. Your clinician partners will be grateful for your interest in their work, and the trust that builds from your engagement with them is invaluable. They will not only share their knowledge, but their passion, which will carry over to your conversations with donors. Care for the internal relationships you build the same as those with your donors, and doors will continue to open. Always leverage any opportunity to show a donor the impact of their giving; it’s the most important part of our world, in my opinion, even if it’s a quick text about a program or sharing a social media post the organization just published.
My knack for being quick to volunteer (sometimes too quick) once led me to be the GEICO Gecko mascot, riding atop a GEICO truck, in the 2006 University of Florida Homecoming Parade. It was an experience I’ll never forget!