Banking on us

Bank of America chose The Floating Hospital as one of its 2024 New York City Neighborhood Builders for our work to provide unrestricted healthcare to those in need. The honor comes with a $200,000 grant over the next two years.

This highly competitive invitation-only program determines its awards through a committee composed of community leaders and past Neighborhood Builders awardees. Now celebrating two decades in the city, the grant provides flexible funding, comprehensive leadership training for the chief executive and an emerging leader and access to the bank’s network of peers in the nonprofit area.

The award celebrates “high-impact nonprofits in nearly 100 communities nationwide,” according to the bank. Since 2004, 42 New York City nonprofits have been selected. Recent recipients of NYC Neighborhood Builders grants include: ACE Programs, Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation, New Heights, and Pursuit. Across the country, Bank of America has chosen some 2,000 nonprofits and invested more than $340 million in them.

“Nonprofit organizations are on the frontline in local communities addressing pressing needs, creating opportunities and providing stability,” said Bank of America New York City president Jose Tavarez. He added that The Floating Hospital and Hot Bread Kitchen, our fellow 2024 honoree, were such organizations, providing “critical healthcare and career development,” respectively, to support vulnerable New Yorkers and “making a difference in our neighborhoods.”

The funding will enhance our ability to provide holistic care and improve the quality of life for the city’s most vulnerable populations. Additionally, it will support a new study to better understand the needs of homeless patients. The results will guide the development of services that improve patient care and connect families to vital resources.

“We are honored and gratified to receive this essential support, which fortifies an already dynamic relationship between Bank of America and The Floating Hospital,” said Sean Granahan, the hospital’s President. “Once again, Bank of America takes the lead in responsible corporate giving, recognizing the value in providing a service to those who have nothing, and making an impact in their lives.”

The ‘best and brightest’

On December 16, Floating Hospital President Sean Granahan was honored along with 99 other “best and brightest Irish-American and Irish-born leaders” as part of Irish America magazine’s Business 100 List. The annual designation recognizes “some of the most innovative and influential companies and corporations in the world.”

The awards dinner was held at the Metropolitan Club in New York, with two keynote speakers, Helen Doody, the managing director and head of Abbey Capital (US), and Brian Ruane, senior executive vice president at BNY. Representing The Floating Hospital for Granahan and our development department were Jenny Iselin and Fionn Quigley. In addition, 61 of the 100 honorees attended along with their guests, plus Deputy Secretary General of Ireland’s Department of Foreign Affairs Sonja Hyland, Consul General Helena Nolan, and former Ambassador to the U.S. Anne Anderson. Dennis Brownlee, the founder of the African American Irish Diaspora Network, was also in attendance, as were former keynote speakers Jim O’Donnell, vice chair of Citigroup, and Kevin McLaughlin, a managing director at Merrill Lynch.

For Quigley, it was as much of a family reunion as a business dinner. Ruane is both his mother’s cousin and the husband of her best friend from school. “He left Ireland in the ’90s, but we’re very close. They have an apartment in Dublin and come every summer, if not more,” he said. Quigley found all of the connections among the guests at the dinner a sign of the strength of the Irish-American corporate world: “all of these people are a very similar age and in vaguely similar fields, and all really know each other.”

Ruane spoke about the present and future of financial markets, business strategy, and the importance of mentorship in management leadership. Doody, discussed her journey through the financial world, her love of American basketball, and the challenges of maintaining a work-life balance. Both speeches received standing ovations.

Granahan was the keynote speaker in 2023 and was featured in an article on The Floating Hospital in the magazine’s Spring 2023 issue.

Save the date

Mark your calendars for this year’s Floating Hospital gala Anchor Hope. On June 10, we will gather at The Edison Ballroom for cocktails, dinner, dancing, a paddle raise and much more, beginning at 6:30pm.

Inspired by the sights, sounds and philanthropic spirit of 1940s, the benefit will sustain our efforts to provide comprehensive care to families in temporary housing and domestic violence safe houses. The support of our guests will help us deliver healthcare and other essentials to these families, ensuring they have what they need to heal and find hope to build a brighter future.

Our Save the Date cards have been mailed, with our invitation arriving in the coming weeks. We look forward to seeing you in June!

Paddington pandemonium

In January, The Floating Hospital was part of the mix of all things Paddington (including the release of “Paddington in Peru” on January 17), and gave out Paddington Bears to our young patients. The bears were a recent donation from the Langham, New York, Fifth Avenue Hotel, which presented us with some 300 stuffed animals, customized with duffle coats in the Langham’s signature pink along with his own trademark bush hat in red.

According to his origin story, Paddington’s name was initially Patuso and he lived with his Uncle Patuzo and Aunt Lucy in Peru after he lost his parents in an earthquake. When his uncle also died in an earthquake, his aunt had to move to the “Home for Retired Bears” in Lima. She sent him to England as a stowaway to find a better life. Paddington’s creator, Michael Bond, was inspired by refugee children and those evacuated from London he saw during the London Blitz of World War II. The note on his coat: “Please look after this bear. Thank you,” is modeled after tags the children wore around their necks.

Many of our younger patients are also part of families who are homeless, and the story of Paddington is theirs as well. We are grateful to the Langham for giving our patients a symbol of warmth and love, as well as something dear to hug during a time of upheaval and uncertainty. The gift can be seen as part of the same tradition of charity that has long been associated with Paddington, including a partnership with UNICEF and other groups addressing childhood health and homelessness, which are both key to our mission.

Our health education department celebrated the donation with bear-related trivia, games, videos, and a craft project, all in honor of this famously polite and well-meaning bear.

An appealing appeal

Thanks to the generosity of our donors, the 2024 year-end appeal was an unqualified success,  exceeding last year’s numbers by a comfortable margin and reflective of a 27% increase overall in individual donations last year. This includes a successful benefit and new events and initiatives, such as the sponsorship of five entrants in the TCS New York City Marathon and a Jazz evening in October. In fact, our special events income was up 520% over the previous year. Gifts to our endowment fund increased 27% and general giving rose 11%.

We are grateful to all of our donors, board members and supporters who were so generous last year and every year. Your donations make an incalculable difference for the better in the lives of New York City’s most vulnerable families. Cheers to another year of working in partnership to continue this important work.

Tending the fire

Former New York Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, a board member and longtime friend of The Floating Hospital, unveiled her official congressional portrait in Washington, D.C. on December 18. Maloney, whose district included our main site in Queens as well as parts of Manhattan and Brooklyn, was instrumental in securing funding for our Queensbridge satellite clinic.

The portrait, by Sharon Sprung, is notable for the former congresswoman’s attire. She is wearing a fireman’s jacket. It was something she donned in 2019 to lobby for an extension through 2090 of the victims compensation fund for those whose health was compromised by the toxic conditions at the World Trade Center after September 11.

Cynthia Davis, The Floating Hospital’s director of community outreach, attended the ceremony. She said it was an honor to represent the hospital and great to reconnect with Maloney’s staff and those she knew from the Long Island City community who were also there to commemorate Maloney’s service.

A seat at the table

We were happy to return to Bank of America’s annual roundtable discussion on the needs and trends among New York City communities, held in Manhattan on December 5. As our representative, community outreach director Cynthia Davis contributed to this effort “to help advance economic and social progress in order to build thriving communities” as part of the frontline meeting these needs.

Davis discussed our programs, and shared her observations and experiences, as well as the challenges and opportunities for our organization and those we serve. The participants’ feedback will help guide the bank’s decisions about philanthropy, volunteerism, and even products and services.

According to Bank of America, which has been a consistent and generous supporter of our programs, “We are proud to support organizations like The Floating Hospital that are meeting New Yorkers at their point of need and helping them onto a path to long-term success.” The bank brings together groups of its beneficiaries annually to make sure their decisions regarding philanthropy, their volunteer commitment, and products and services, are not made in a vacuum.

Other panelists included representatives from organizations such as Hot Bread Kitchen, God’s Love We Deliver, Hunter College and the Food Bank for New York City.