Mission & Priorities

Besides clicking the Donate Now button on each page of our web site, more than a dozen ways exist to make a gift to the foundation. The fullest explanation is available here.

You may call the foundation’s main number at 908.522.2840 and ask to speak to a gift officer. Check out our staff list for e-mail addresses and to see which staff member is best suited to help. Among the staff members who talk most frequently with donors are Executive Director Clelia Biamonti and directors Kenneth Cole, Marianne Devlin, Lorie McDonald, Kerry Mowry, and Eileen Weiss.

Of course, and we detail those benefits here. Benefits start at annual gifts of $2,500 or more, and we have special benefits for cumulative giving and for including Overlook Foundation in your estate plan. Joining our Heritage Society is a great way to make the gift of a lifetime.

We collaborate with the medical center’s leadership to determine what projects might benefit from philanthropic support. A detailed process requires specific documentation to match requests with monies to be disbursed by the foundation, and our auditors check that process annually.

In 1976 Overlook Medical Center (then known as Overlook Hospital) created and funded an independent, public charity originally named Overlook Hospital Foundation. Ever since, a separate board of trustees has overseen what is now called Overlook Foundation, but the foundation cooperates and consults with Overlook Medical Center leadership to determine what projects to support. The president of the hospital is, by charter, a member of the foundation’s board with a vote, and the hospital provides the foundation with space and other resources to conduct its work. Overlook Foundation undergoes its own, separate audit each year and files its own federal and state forms.

It is 51-0194054.

If you want a copy of the letter or a W-9 form from the foundation, call or email Kimberly Myler.

During the past decade the foundation has raised annual totals ranging from $4.9 million to $13.9 million. Higher totals usually represent larger gifts made during campaigns. For summaries of our revenues and expenses in recent years, go to our financials section, where we share our annual reports, audited financials, and IRS Form 990s. The foundation’s assets have climbed steadily over the years, approaching $100 million in recent years. The financial statements also report asset figures.

We refer you to Guidestar and Charity Navigator for comparisons and ratings. Both organizations rate Overlook Foundation highly for financial transparency. For our fiscal year ended June 30, 2019, our efforts cost us 20.1 cents to raise each dollar, a rate at the low end of expectations for charities nationally.

The medical center and its parent organization, Atlantic Health System, are tax-exempt, nonprofit entities. All hospital income beyond expenses is re-invested in the facilities, people, programs, and equipment needed to provide better health care to patients or more preventive care to area residents. A few selected subsidiaries of Atlantic Health operate as for-profit entities, and for them Atlantic Health pays all required federal, state, and local taxes.

The foundation occasionally collaborates with other Atlantic Health System foundations to fund system-wide initiatives that will benefit every hospital. In such cases the money raised by Overlook Foundation funds the portion of those initiatives undertaken at Overlook Medical Center.

Yes, you may. We are happy to furnish a list of existing restricted funds you may contribute to or work with you to establish a new one. New funds and their purposes require the support of both medical center and foundation leadership. The board of trustees votes four times a year on disbursements from restricted funds.

Decisions on the use of unrestricted gifts rest with the foundation’s board of trustees, and the board votes quarterly on disbursements of those unrestricted funds.

Overlook Foundation is completely self-funding. We pay a significant portion of our expenses from the investment returns on the assets we manage, but we also pay some expenses from the unrestricted gifts we receive. To be good stewards, we manage expenses carefully. In our most recent fiscal year our cost to raise a dollar (fund raising revenue compared to all expenses) was 20 cents.

1. Almost all of Overlook’s top-ranked programs have benefited from community philanthropy. In fact, while many hospitals deliver solid care with only payments from private health insurers and governmental reimbursements, nationally recognized care often involves philanthropy.

Generous community donors created the Atlantic Neuroscience Institute at Overlook, the hospital’s flagship service, and it brought the Carol G. Simon Cancer Center to the Summit campus. The Gerald Glasser Brain Tumor Center and the Thomas Glasser Caregivers Center received gifts from the Westfield-based Glasser Foundation. Summit’s Nicholas K. and Anna J. Bouras Foundation has supported the Bouras Auditorium and the Bouras medical excellence awards for employees, and it recently committed to a $2.5 million challenge grant that will name an expanded Bouras Emergency Department. The Short Hills-based Reeves Foundation has had a long association with Overlook that has supported the Reeves Same-Day Surgery Center, the Michael Gordon Reeves Pediatric Emergency Department, the Janel Reeves Neuroscience Intensive Care Unit, and several other spaces in the hospital. And a challenge grant from the foundation will soon create the Reeves Family Surgical Center.

Leadership gifts created the Sol and Meri Barer Inpatient Pediatric Unit and the Frank and Mimi Walsh Maternity Center. Others founded and then expanded a nationally recognized eating-disorders program, underwrote a new results-waiting area in the Emergency Department, endowed a complete palliative care team, named the Carole and Joseph Katz Wound Healing Center and a wound healing nursing position, and outfitted the Stacey Goldstein ICU Waiting Area.

A list of our specific priorities is available at the top of this page. We seek support for projects related to the medical center’s five-year master plan that will enhance 75 percent of our 50-year-old patient rooms.

Please check out two foundation policies here. The Gift Acceptance Policy delineates what gifts the foundation accepts and, for some gifts, what documentation the IRS and the foundation may require. The Donor Recognition Policy delineates how the foundation recognizes gifts and how it determines naming privileges, the longevity of those privileges, and the rare circumstances under which the foundation may revoke those privileges.

The foundation’s Privacy Policy, available here, governs your data. We never share your name or address except with vendors working directly for the foundation who agree to maintain your privacy. We never sell data. We do not share the size of your gifts with other donors, and, like all Atlantic Health System employees, we adhere to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, which forbids the sharing of your health information.

Yes, we welcome volunteers to assist at our annual golf outing and with our annual fall fundraising party. We also choose select area residents as public members of board committees, typically for a special skill, experience, or interest that the resident may have. All members of the board of trustees are volunteers and receive no compensation for their time or expertise.

Overlook Medical Center and the Overlook Auxiliary also accept volunteers. Volunteers at Overlook Medical Center must undergo an extensive background check and thorough orientation.