The Mt. Sinai Legacy
From modest beginnings in 1903, through its development into a major teaching and research institution in University Circle and later a regional health delivery system, Mt. Sinai's impact on our community has been monumental. That heritage of caring continues today through the grantmaking activity of The Mt. Sinai Health Care Foundation.
Our History
The Mt. Sinai Legacy of Caring
Over one hundred years ago, in June 1903, an institution destined to achieve a national reputation for medical excellence first opened its doors to care for the people of Cleveland. That institution, Mt. Sinai Hospital, was generously supported by the Cleveland Jewish community.
Not only did Mt. Sinai develop into a superior teaching and research medical center, but from the 1960s to the 1990s, it was perhaps the largest private provider of care to the poor in the State of Ohio. The Mt. Sinai Medical Center operated the east side's only Level I Trauma Center and had Cleveland's first and, for some years, only emergency medicine residency training program. Mt. Sinai, which was affiliated with Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, has been part of Cleveland's reputation as a medical hub.
Sea Change: The Cleveland Health Care Marketplace
In the mid-1990s, consolidation of Cleveland's health care industry and the debut of for-profit hospital corporations in Northeast Ohio forever changed the medical landscape. Several non-profit hospitals sold assets to for-profit corporations or created joint ventures, resulting in a number of new health grantmaking foundations. In the case of Mt. Sinai, one of the largest of the resulting foundations, hospital leadership decided to sell the institution's operating assets in April 1996 to position the Mt. Sinai Health Care System (Mt. Sinai, Richmond Heights and Laurelwood Hospitals, as well as several outpatient facilities) to compete successfully with developing systems of University Hospitals and The Cleveland Clinic, with The Mt. Sinai Medical Center as the flagship tertiary care center of the new system.
A New Health Care Philanthropy for Cleveland
An additional goal of the sale of Mt. Sinai assets was to create a philanthropic legacy that would perpetuate the mission of the non-profit Mt. Sinai into the future, no matter what the future held for the health care industry.
The Mt. Sinai Health Foundation developed into a leading health philanthropy, already distributing more than $130 million in its initial 22 years of grantmaking.