More than 3,700 alumni, parents, and friends have answered Dartmouth’s ongoing Call to Lead campaign with gifts to the Geisel School of Medicine. Inspired by Geisel’s vision for a healthy, resilient, and equitable future, donors have pledged more than $135 million toward Geisel’s top campaign priorities and an additional $45 million to other programs, bringing the school within reach of its $207-million goal. Their generosity is fueling vital student initiatives, research and innovation, and advances in health care delivery.
“Our faculty, alumni, and students are improving the health and health care of millions of people worldwide, extending the school’s impact farther than ever before,” says Duane Compton, PhD, dean of Geisel.
Scientific discoveries made at Geisel led to the first successful cancer immunotherapies, helped transform care for people with cystic fibrosis, and, more recently, laid the foundation for the first COVID-19 vaccine—to name just a few examples.
“The generosity of alumni and friends is allowing our faculty and students to pursue bold new ideas and become the health care leaders our world needs,” adds Compton.
Todd Sisitsky, a member of the Dartmouth College Class of 1993 and chair of the all-volunteer Geisel Board of Advisors, is one of many College alumni to make gifts to Geisel during The Call to Lead campaign.
“As a donor and a volunteer, I’ve been able to marry my love of Dartmouth with my love for biomedical research and innovation,” says Sisitsky, who is also managing partner at TPG Capital. “For anyone who wants to make a positive impact on the world, Geisel is a great place to start.”
Philanthropy Powering Impact at Geisel
Fundraising continues for these key areas, which have already attracted widespread support. Here are the totals raised as of September:
- More than $35 million in support of scholarships and student programs, including pioneering initiatives such as the Healthy Students, Healthy Physicians student mental health program.
- More than $7 million to advance the work of the Center for Global Health Equity, including student opportunities and partnerships with underserved communities in the U.S. and abroad.
- More than $25 million to fuel next-generation immunotherapy research at Norris Cotton Cancer Center and to speed the translations of discoveries into life-saving cancer care through the Dartmouth Innovations Accelerator for Cancer.
- More than $17 million to power the implementation and evaluation of new ways of delivering health care—in order to reduce costs, advance health equity, and align with what matters most to patients and families. For example, the Susan & Richard Levy Health Care Delivery Incubator, jointly funded by philanthropy, Geisel, and Dartmouth-Hitchcock, is providing multi-disciplinary teams with resources to redesign care for patients with serious illnesses.
Up Next in the Campaign
Now entering the home stretch of the campaign, Geisel is seeking visionary donors to support the priorities above—and the following:
- The MD student coaching program provides all Geisel medical students with the support and guidance they need to thrive, both in medical school and throughout their careers. This is especially important for first-generation medical students (who may not have physician role models in their family).
- Diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives to enhance the learning environment at Geisel and to take on the systemic and pervasive inequities in healthcare systems, regionally, nationally, and globally.
- Child health microbiome research to reveal the early life exposures and opportunities for prevention relating to autism, asthma, allergies, ADHD, and other conditions on the rise in children.
- Precision prevention cancer research and innovation, bringing together Dartmouth expertise in epidemiology, big data analysis, digital health technology, environmental toxins research, and health care delivery to empower individuals to reduce their lifetime cancer risk.
Learn more about the Geisel campaign. To discuss making a gift, contact Jon Fitzgerald at 603-646-5235 or Jon.M.Fitzgerald@dartmouth.edu.
