Hospitals see benefits of corporate name game

A Pittsburgh children's hospital is the latest to consider selling the naming rights to a facility.

By Katherine Vogt, AMNews staff. Jan. 31, 2005.

What is in a name? For some hospitals, perhaps millions of dollars.

A growing number of hospitals are offering corporations naming rights to their facilities in exchange for large donations as a means of raising money to fund construction projects. Experts say the phenomenon could be indicative of the unusual fund-raising tactics that hospitals have turned to as they face increasing financial pressures.

"It's the marriage of money and need," said Lawrence McAndrews, president and CEO of the National Assn. of Children's Hospitals and Related Institutions. "If you get a contribution [for naming rights] toward construction of a building and then you are able to offer more than you would have been able to otherwise, then that would be an attractive offer."

Already several hospitals have sold corporate naming rights. There is Hasbro Children's Hospital at Rhode Island Hospital, Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital of New York-Presbyterian, The Bristol-Myers Squibb Children's Hospital at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Jersey, and Mattel Children's Hospital at the University of California, Los Angeles.

The next to join the pack may be Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh, which is building a 263-bed campus in Lawrenceville, Pa. A spokesman said the hospital's fund-raising arm was exploring the possibility of accepting a philanthropic gift in exchange for naming rights, but wouldn't give details. At least one published report said the deal could be worth $20 million, a significant chunk of the project's $473 million price tag. The potential bidders are unknown.