ROCHESTER, MN – The Mayo Clinic has raised $1.35 billion in its first comprehensive fundraising campaign, surpassing its initial goal of $1.25 billion.

In 2005, Mayo embarked on a five-year campaign to raise philanthropic support to accelerate innovations in clinical practice, education and research. The campaign has already secured gifts for Mayo’s endowment and support for new and current activities on all three Mayo campuses – Rochester, Minn., Jacksonville, Fla., and Scottsdale/Phoenix, Ariz. – and the Mayo Health System.

“We exceeded our goal despite the unanticipated economic crisis that hit this country when we still had a year and a half to go,” said John Noseworthy, MD, Mayo's president and CEO.

James Lyddy, chairman of the Mayo Clinic Department of Development, said the campaign received gifts from more than 286,000 benefactors. The funds will go to support various Mayo initiatives, including:

• Mayo Clinic T. Denny Sanford Pediatric Center: An all-in-one subspecialty pediatric clinic that cares for more than 46,000 children.
• Mayo Clinic Hospital in Florida: The hospital, with 214 beds and 22 operating rooms, opened in a fully integrated medical campus in Florida with both inpatient and outpatient services in one location.
• Gabriel House of Care: A 30-bedroom hospitality house to be built on Mayo Clinic’s campus in Florida for transplant and radiation therapy patients. It's a collaborative project between Mayo Clinic and St. Andrew’s Lighthouse, a Florida organization that provides housing to patients and their families. Groundbreaking for the project tentatively is set for March.
• Village at Mayo Clinic: Housing for patients who are receiving ongoing cancer treatment or are awaiting transplant surgery on the Mayo Clinic Hospital campus in Phoenix. When completed, the village will accommodate 70 patients and their caregivers.
• Mayo Clinic Schulze Center for Novel Therapeutics: A virtual three-site center that translates laboratory findings into vanguard methods to treat cancer.
• Mayo Clinic Robert and Arlene Kogod Center on Aging: This center focuses on clinical interventions to delay cardiovascular disease, dementia, mobility disorders, strokes and metabolic diseases.
• Mayo Clinic W. Hall Wendel, Jr. Musculoskeletal Center: A new center that brings together 47 surgical and clinical consultants in one location.