Translating Money Into Health

When his mother turned 90 in 1999, Terrence Donnelly asked her to choose between two gifts: a ski suit or a hospital wing. In choosing the hospital wing, this woman, who had never spent a night in a hospital, gained a namesake – the Grace Donnelly Women's Health Pavilion, which is scheduled to open in 2005 at the Victoria Campus of the London Health Sciences Centre (in London, Ontario).

Terrence Donnelly is a retired lawyer and businessman in Toronto. Admitted to the bar in 1962, Donnelly practiced "whatever came through the door," including working as a special prosecutor for the Ontario Securities Commission. He is happy to tell lawyer jokes, and even makes self-deprecating jibes that he got his positions because colleagues said, "Donnelly's starving – better send him a case or two." But he had no reason to starve: in 1964, one of the people who "came though the door" was Colonel Harland Sanders, of Kentucky Fried Chicken. This meeting was the beginning of a long and productive business relationship, in which Donnelly acquired Kentucky Fried Chicken franchises throughout Ontario, Quebec, and Alberta.

When Donnelly retired at age 60 in 1996, he was nervous about what he would do. A friend, who happened to be chief of cardiovascular and thoracic surgery at St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto, had an idea. St. Michael's now features the Terrence Donnelly Vascular Biology Laboratory and the Terrence Donnelly Heart Centre. Donnelly calculates that he has donated over C$9 million to the hospital since 1996.

Donnelly concluded that the next logical step was to endow a chair in cardiac surgery at the University of Toronto (UofT). The vice president and chief development officer of the faculty of medicine's advancement office "listened patiently," Donnelly says, "but brushed my papers aside and said, 'While you're here, I want to share something with you.'" That something was the Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Research (CCBR).

Donnelly enthusiastically describes the CCBR project, while admitting that the details of the advanced research are beyond him. The CCBR, scheduled to open in 2005, will employ 500 researchers, and will be a hub of national and international research. It is unique: the first time that various disciplines – medicine, pharmacy, chemistry, engineering, computer science – will be brought under one roof to conduct research into the links between human genes and disease.

Donnelly's C$5 million contribution made him the first private donor to the C$100 million project, which has already received a total of C$80 million from the Canada Foundation for Innovation, the Ontario Innovation Trust, and the UofT. Donnelly considers his contribution to be "an investment in minds who will translate money into health."

With infectious excitement, Donnelly shows the plans for the CCBR home, designed by world-renowned Stuttgart architects Behnische & Behnische. He explains that the 12-story, transparent "eco-building," situated on the UofT campus, only minutes from a string of teaching hospitals on University Avenue, will serve as a visual demonstration of the close links between research and care.

Donnelly's current "extracurricular" activities include skiing (which he has discovered since his retirement) and collecting art, which he donates to St. Michael's Hospital to make patient lounges more comfortable and appealing. Donnelly is also involved with the Colonel Harland Sanders Foundation (USA), and is current president of the Colonel Harland Sanders Charitable Organization Inc. (Canada), both of which support children's health and hospitals, primarily in the United States and Canada.

"I feel obligated to put money into the community that allowed me to be successful. The reward for my success in my legal and business life is to contribute to projects such as these – to be able to help people who do not enjoy perfect health," adds Donnelly, "You don't have to be a doctor to know that if you don't have good health, nothing else matters."

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