Caitlin Whyte (Host): Welcome to In Their Words, the podcast brought to you by UPMC and Central PA and the UPMC Pinnacle Foundation. August is National Make-A-Will Month, making it the perfect time to explore how planned giving can create lasting impact in our community. Today, we hear from Jessica Ritchie, President of the UPMC Pinnacle Foundation, as she shares her journey from education to healthcare philanthropy and discusses how legacy gifts are transforming patient care across our region.

Jessica Ritchie: My name is Jessica Ritchie. I'm the president of the UPMC Pinnacle Foundation. My gosh, when I was five years old—so, my mom was a nurse, and she did a ton of her work in community health. She was a community health nurse for most of her career. And so, I think just being in that space, growing, up in those, you know, seeing what she would be working on. She was also a Lamaze instructor, which was fun because this is before digital. So, we had poster print sizes of like all the different stages of pregnancy that sat in, like, the corner of our dining room.

And so, like I always had like this kind of loose connection, I think, to healthcare. So, I think at one point I wanted to be a nurse, but I also thought I'd like to work with kids and be a teacher at some point, and then realized very quickly, I didn't have all the patience I think for that job.

So, I had a great experience. I went to Lebanon Valley College. That was where I got my undergraduate actually, and my graduate degree. It was just the perfect fit for me. It was a small college. It wasn't too far from home. I just immediately felt at home. And when I was a student there, I worked in the admission office as a tour guide and loved that job, loved the admission team. And when I graduated, I had the opportunity to come back to serve as an admissions counselor for them. So, I spent two years in that role and helping students decide if they wanted to come to LVC, recruiting students, being on the road. It was a great job for a 22-year-old. They gave me a set of keys and a Toyota Camry and said, "We'll see you in 15 weeks. Here's all the college fairs you need to hit up."

However, at the time, I had a supervisor who was only for a little bit the Director of Admissions, she's still there now in a different role, but Sue Jones. She was amazing. And she was the director at a very young age. And I knew that if I was going to advance an admission, I would probably have to leave, because Sue was in that role. And I knew that I would be better served if I left admission or if I came back and had different experience or whatever. So, I had a colleague that I had reconnected with, Christie. And she had said, "You would be really great at development work." And she kind of explained to me, and I remember thinking at the time, "Why in world would I want to ask anybody for money? That just sounds awful."

But the thing that I really liked about the job, in addition to it having more kind of upward mobility trajectory, these people from development kind of tend to move around a little bit more because development jobs are available. The piece of it that I really liked that got me, she said, "Well, you can work with the student workers. You will oversee the student workers in kind of a supervisory role." And I hadn't had that experience before, except that I oversaw the student tour guides in the admission office. So, I really liked that piece of it. And I thought, "Well, if I hate this job, i'll do it for like a year or two. And I can always go back to admission work somewhere else if I need to." I was just really lucky to be at LVC during a time of a lot of change and growth. And I was underneath a vice president who had a lot of experience, as a mentor to me. She's now working in consulting, and she kind of showed me, I think, the right way to work in development and fundraising and understand the more complex side of it—what I would say the more like science and the data-driven piece of it. And I spent the next eight years in that role. And I was able to move from the assistant Director of Annual Giving, overseeing the student phone-a-thon callers to ending my career as the Director of Major Gifts.

And so, at that point, my oldest was two. And I was traveling a lot, visiting alumni, and I wanted something that was going to be a little less travelled. And I had spent eight years there. I kind of felt like it was my time to move. And a position opened at Harrisburg Academy. I took that role. And that was really helpful for my entry into the Harrisburg area. Harrisburg Academy has been around for hundreds of years. And it was just such a great small, nurturing place and for me to kind of run my own development operation, fundraising and alumni on a smaller scale, and that was great.

I knew the vice president at the time, the Pinnacle Health Foundation, Jeff Suffel. He and I connected when I got to Harrisburg. He had worked with me at one point at Lebanon Valley. And he said, "I really would love if you thought about coming over to work in healthcare." And I remember thinking at the time, I spent 10, 12 years—well, actually 14 years by that point—in education. And I'm not entirely sure that I mesh with healthcare very well. But then, I kind of remember back to all of the pieces that my mom had worked on in community health. She was ending her career at Pinnacle at the time. She was a couple years from retirement. And I just remember thinking of the clients and all of the women she really worked with, and the opportunity to be able to work with donors and community members to talk about support for patients that really, really need help and decided again—I think it's just like always in the back of my head. If I hate it, I'll go find something else, because I know that I can do this work. I've really, you know, kind of gelled with this work. And then, again, I just felt like I got so fortunate to be at the right time and place.

Jeff was a great mentor to me for about two years. He decided to make a move at that point. And the CEO at the time, Mike Young, promoted me to be the vice president. And it's been a remarkable time here through a lot of change, a lot of growth at the foundation. I get to work with the best team.

Host: Jessica's path from admissions counselor to foundation president wasn't just about career advancement. It was about finding her purpose in making a meaningful impact. Her transition into healthcare philanthropy would prove to be perfectly timed as she discovered how her mother's work and community health had planted the seeds for her own calling.

Jessica Ritchie: I think one of the things that has been my point of pride here has been the ability to recruit the team that we have. We have the ability to offer a really nice work-life balance, a lot of impact. So, I know that the team always feels like they're making a difference in the work that we do. I don't know if I'm answering your question, but I just feel like how I got here has been kind of—it's not been a super calculated. It has always been kind of, like, "I think I can do this work." You kind of lead with that purpose piece of I want to make an impact. And I've just been really lucky along the way to have a really great team and really great team, like peers and bosses. I've worked for David Gibbons as my fourth CEO and I've enjoyed working for every single one of them. So in the vein of kind of following where I've always wanted to go and not being super tactical on that, but more a gut of what's the impact we can make or what's the work that I want to do?

The foundation, in the thick of COVID really—in in addition to amazing staff and great CEOs, I also have a really kind of progressive, thoughtful foundation board that I am lucky to work with. And in the thick of COVID, they redid our strategic plan. We had started it in 2019 and kind of COVID hit. And obviously, it was a time of crisis for us as a healthcare system. But the board at the time said, "Let's not sit on this." This is the absolute opportunity to be thinking about what we do and reinventing what we focus on. And so, we picked three pillars.

The first being help for those who need it most in the community, for our un- and underinsured patients. I often say that this bucket could never be filled. We see it a lot the need every day. The need is immense right now. If you think about homelessness, food insecurity, transportation issues, all of these things that our patients need to be able to access healthcare, afford healthcare, can be small things from $10 medications to very large areas of support. And trying as best we can to work with our social work team to try to bridge gaps in care. That's kind of the first bucket.

The second bucket, I would say, or pillar that we defined is basic health and wellness, trying to promote healthy lifestyles. We know that chronic disease is on the rise. People are fighting obesity, diabetes, heart failure. A lot of the things that we need to be doing to create healthy kids and adults is to be outside and be walking, to be making healthy food choices, to be more mindful, to put down our phones. You know, all these things that I've learned from my great clinical partners.

And so, we try to find ways at the foundation to work in those spaces to help promote healthy lifestyles. And that can range from everything from supporting our diabetes management class to our farm-to-hospital program where we actually have a working farm at UPMC Memorial in New York. And so, that's always a kind of more fun bucket to working, because you try to be a little more proactive rather than reactive as much as you can.

Then, the last piece is workforce development. And I say in this region in central Pennsylvania, as consumers, you have a lot of choice whenever it comes to healthcare in Central Pennsylvania. However, in that space, we also compete. And we know post COVID, that there is a demand for healthcare workers across the board, whether that be your dietary and environmental workers to your techs and technicians and medical assistants, nurses, physicians, anesthetists, the list kind of goes on and on. And so, we work really dedicated in that space with our human resources team, with our leadership to determine where the highest needs and priorities are to attract staff and not just attract staff, but then also retain staff.

Because we know that once you have folks here who are great, we really want to keep them, and supporting their education as they go through their career path here. If you have somebody come in as like perhaps a ersearch technician, but they want to eventually be an OR room nurse, how do we support that person with either tuition, remission, scholarship support, attending conferences, professional development, all of those pieces. And so, that tends to be a very large piece of our work that we do as well. And in addition to like education piece, also employee appreciation and employee, you know, just allowing employees to have the opportunity to have some downtime with their staff to celebrate service awards, that type of thing. And so, that tends to be an area that we do quite a lot. And we're very proud of that, to be able to say that we support our colleagues the way that we do.

So in the workforce pillar, it takes a lot of investment and a lot of thoughtfulness to be able to come to that to support all the different needs of our workforce on the teams in which we serve. Last week in the podcast, you had heard from Bob and Donna Pullo and their gift, their legacy gift to support education. And that's one that sticks out to me as being very thoughtful and very meaningful and very planful. And I think that's a key word with legacy and estate gifts, it's something that's very planned. And I'm so grateful to them because they worked with us to be thoughtful in that gift, and education was something that was super important to them. And we were able to align it with our pillars to say, "This is important to you. And not only are you making this gift now to support this pillar that requires a lot of support and has a lot of need, you're making this gift now, but you're actually making this gift now to support future generations." And that's the piece that I think from my perspective is so helpful. Because if you think about those three pillars I just talked about, the community health needs that access to care. We have patients who are in crisis every day. And so, we are using foundation funds and donor support to support those patients who need something immediately and now.

I think one of the things I often say is I have a great team, but we are a small team supporting 15,000 employees across UPMC and Central Pennsylvania. We can easily get wrapped up on the needs of the everyday. And when my colleagues and leadership come to me and say, "Hey, we really have this need around workforce development. We really want to support our nurses in their education. We really want to try to create a cohort of surgical technicians that we need to bring through and support in their education. Those are needs that need to happen, and we need to make those decisions.

And when you have a donor come, like Bob and Donna with the thoughtfulness of saying, "This is something that we are very passionate about, we want to do, but we want to support you well into the future. Whoever's in this role, my future me, right? In the future, hopefully, we'll look back and thank us and Bob and Donna for that thoughtfulness and planfulness for future, because there are days that I don't get to think about the future, because I'm trying to just focus on trying to meet those needs of the present.

And so, I think planned gifts and legacy gifts are one of those things that people who work in gifts tend to sometimes push off, because you're thinking about like the hypothetical and in the future. And we know that there's needs for support now. But also, we know not to underestimate the power of those gifts and what they can do. We had a gift—not this past February, but February of 2024. So, it's a good example of that, you're kind of your future self thanking somebody previously.

In February of 2024, we received our largest bequest ever. It was a $4.5-million gift to support the Heart and Vascular Institute. It came from a grateful patient, John Hilbert and his wife, when they had left an estate gift to support their cardiology team in gratitude for what they had done and they were donors who had made annual gifts, had always supported off and on the foundation and the health system. And we did not actively take a role in working with them on the estate. Sometimes these gifts come to us as a surprise, because people are sometimes more quiet about their intentions. And so, when we received notification of that gift, it was a remarkable day. It was one that stands out in my career to be able to call Eric Toth, who's the Vice President of the Heart and Vascular Institute, and tell him that news. And to hear his gratitude and the gratitude from the physicians when I got to tell the cardiologist about that gift was remarkable.

And so with that gift, we've endowed a portion of it, but we're using it to support patient needs. We're using it to support education. So in the same vein as the Pullos, that gift now supports education. We have a need for echo, cardio echo technicians. That's a very, very specialized job. And we had two folks who are current employees here raise their hands and say, "I really would like to become an echo tech." I worked with Eric. Once we kind of heard that intention, they had no idea that we had the opportunity to support their education through the Hilbert Scholarship. And that was just another remarkable piece of this, because they're trying to figure out, "Okay, well how am I going to be able to afford to put myself through school" and for us to say, "We got you," that is just a really cool thing to be able to do. And it supports our biggest needs. I know it's just two. But every time we take these kind of high need positions and we just kind of chunk away at them, you create better access. You create more opportunity on the schedule to have patients be served. And that was all possible because somebody in 2003—well, the Hilberts in 2003—put together a remarkable estate gift were very thoughtful. And so, I think there's just such power in legacy-giving and what it's able to do. And I don't think it's something that donors think about as like off the top of their philanthropy. But it certainly has the opportunity to be very meaningful and powerful in years to come.

So, I think, one of the things I am part of a group called the Susquehanna Valley Council for Charitable Gift Planners. Yes, that's actually a group of people, because planned giving is very unique. And it sometimes I think feels very complicated and you can put together very complicated planned gifts, certainly to an organization. The folks that work in planned giving really, really well are folks that higher ed does a really good job of it, assisted skilled nursing facilities do a really good job of it. But one of the things that I've learned is instead of focusing on the complexity of gifts, you kind of get to that point with the right donor, is that there's some really kind of just simple ways that you can be thoughtful about future gifts. Obviously, the one that the Pullos and Hilbert gift that I just spoke about that's easiest, is simply a bequest, right? Leaving an organization in your estate plans.

And I think sometimes people think you have to have like really large asset base to do that. A legacy gift certainly, I think, is a way for people to demonstrate their philanthropy if they don't have funds right now. One of the things that we found, and perhaps the Hilberts are a really good example, they had the ability to make smaller gifts during their lifetime, but when they passed, leave a sizable bequest. One of the things that we've also learned, we've been working with free will, and we've been doing some work with our employees. We've got employees who are very grateful for their employment over many, many years to UPMC, who have left us in their estate plans because they worked in a pediatric unit, they serve patients in the emergency department, and they want to give back to those areas. These are people who are nurses and technicians and people who are certainly are philanthropic but maybe aren't able to leave a large gift.

When you plan it through your estate, it can be very different and give the opportunity to leave a larger gift. And so, we've been doing a lot of work and it's been really cool for our team to do that work with some of our employees because we get to hear these amazing stories of gratitude and why they've chosen us, which is honestly a complete honor that they've put trust in us, that they want to give to us from their future, right? That's just a really thoughtful planned gift.

One of the other easier ways to give is if you are over 70-1/2 you can give through your IRA when you have to take a qualified minimum distribution. You can do that with tax benefits to us or to any not-for-profit. So, that's another kind of easier way to do a gift. There's also other ways that you can, you know, work within the space of charitable gift annuities where you can make a gift, but then also receive small annuity back. And then, after the payment period is done, it goes to the charity, trust gifts, charitable trust, and those where it starts to get kind of more complex.

But I think the idea, If somebody like the Pullos who are more well-versed in this space, but if you're somebody who wants to be thinking about that, certainly reach out. We're here to talk about that, to explore that. And I think the biggest thing is what what is it that want to have, right? Like, what are your goals, I guess, is what I'm trying to say. What are your goals that you want from a philanthropic standpoint, from an estate standpoint. Obviously, we always, always recommend working with your financial planner, attorneys. We have a whole team that we work with when we set up types of gifts to make sure that everything's done in a way that's appropriate and works, and to make sure that everybody feels like, that, again, that their goals are being met and how they want their philanthropy to be met.

And I think the lovely thing about legacy gifts or planned gifts is that there's so many different ways to that to make philanthropy happen. And I think it takes them thoughtfulness and some education on our part and on donor's part to think about how to make that happen. Because it doesn't necessarily just mean, "Okay, I'm going to go on and I'm going to click a link and make a gift online today." There's lots of ways to get to what your legacy is and I think that's like why I always like the word legacy gifts. Because one of the things that I think is a great conversation to start with folks like Bob and Donna, people who are really philanthropic and they're thinking about their legacy. What do you want your legacy to be? And then, how do you work with that team of professionals to make that happen? And it can be really, really remarkable in the end the not-for-profit.

 I've worked in the philanthropic space for a while. And so, when I think about my legacy, I know what programs are important to me from my healthcare journey. My youngest was a NICU baby, and I always go back to like, "That's my why," right? From my education, and how grateful I started off talking about my opportunity that, and everything that Lebanon Valley College gave me. And so, when I think about legacy and those pieces that are important to me, it's thanking, you know, showing gratitude back to those entities that have given me so much and being able to—and I know this sounds kind of like you hear this a lot, but leave it in a better place than you found it. But truly to create some sort of lasting change or to leave that mark in some ways that makes a difference in the areas that have been important to me.

I think I already said this, but just personally thanking the Pullos for being thoughtful, and how much it means whenever donors make this kind of gift, and to have this opportunity to talk about it in a venue like this, because it paves the way for other people to think about it. And that's what I'm really grateful to the Pullos for allowing us to highlight their story, for other people to think about this as a vehicle. And I say that as a vehicle of giving, which sounds very, I don't know, like almost too formal. Because if I think about the Hilbert gift and everything it's been able to do, it's so meaningful. But I don't think that people think that way, right? And so for the Pullos to come out and say, "This is an opportunity." Like we're being planful, to be able then to give that opportunity for other donors to perhaps think that way." So, I'm very grateful to them and to our donors who make gifts like this for thinking about our future.

Host: Jessica's story reminds us that legacy giving isn't just about the size of the gift, it's about the thoughtfulness behind it. Whether through a simple bequest and IRA distribution or a more complex planned gift, every donor has the opportunity to create lasting change. This August, as we observe national Make-A-Will Month, consider how your legacy might support the causes closest to your heart. Thank you for joining us on In Their Words. Until next time, remember that every gift, no matter the size, has the power to transform lives.