2022 40 Under 40 Winners

In her role with the Baptist Health Foundation, Anna has demonstrated a willingness to volunteer at events, outside of work hours, to promote and support Baptist's fundraising efforts and has led a handful of social media campaigns for fundraising. 

Outside of her efforts for Baptist, Anna is president of the Florida Pancreas Cancer Coalition (FLPCC) - a local non-profit that has raised and donated more than $200,000 to local cancer research groups. 

Anna is also involved with Make-A-Wish of Central and Northern Florida, hosting events, serving on their gala planning committee and on the WISH Society.

She is an active member of both AHP and AFP.

I worked as the Financial Analyst for Wolfson Children's Hospital and the majority of my job was working with over 200 endowments. Part of my role in operational finance was ensuring the funds were being spent correctly, so I worked with the Foundation team pretty closely. After working several budget seasons with the non revenue generating departments and programs I supported within the children's hospital, I quickly realized how important philanthropy dollars were for those departments.

So many of the valuable programs offered at Wolfson Children's Hospital for our community would not exist without philanthropy dollars. I knew I needed to make a career change and I took the leap and jumped from finance to the Foundation. I have been with the Baptist Health System for 20 years, so this is obviously a company I love which makes raising money for the hospital exciting. Sometimes it doesn't even feel like a job.

I started out in healthcare philanthropy as part of the mid level team. I was given email campaigns and list to work on. Then after a few months I was given the opportunity to do more. I'm so fortunate I was asked what I wanted and where I saw my future. I voiced I wanted to be a major gift officer working one of the Baptist Health System's campuses. I have experience raising funds for pancreatic cancer and I have personal connections with cancer, so I leaned towards Baptist MD Anderson Cancer Center. I was given the opportunity to train under the major gift officer for that specific campus. It felt as if it opened this entire new career for me and made me realize how meaningful oncology fundraising was to me personally. 

My greatest passion is pediatric care and oncology. I absolutely love Child Life and Social Work. These are such incredible departments who bring so much care to our patients. I really enjoy seeing how much they work within the community and I always advocate for them. I have a passion for oncology, because I can simply be the voice of hope. When patients pass, you get a call from their family member or friend wanting to give back. They give back for many reasons. It could be to help find a cure, so no one else has to suffer. It could be because we were able to give their loved one 2 more years of quality of life. Sometimes it's just to give in honor of their loved one. Donations made for oncology are all so special and touching and I'm always honored to accept a gift. 

My best advice would be to get to know the clinical staff, the physicians and the admin team. These are the key players within the health system to help you raise funds. They know what they need and can explain it, then it's up to you to sell it to your donors. I found I was able to complete the circle, coming from an operational finance background. Leadership sometimes had different ideas for how to spend the money, whereas your donor and the foundation have different ideas. I understand donors don't always want their money spent on "operational expenses". So, I used my knowledge to dig through expenses and find projects to fund that will satisfy both the donor and the finance team.