Community Development: Expanding Glens Falls Hospital

As a nonprofit, community hospital, Glens Falls Hospital is committed to providing big-city medicine and hometown care to everyone in our five-county region, regardless of their ability to pay. The organization is continually reinvesting in high quality professionals, innovative health care technologies and services, and facilities.

The challenge
“Our Foundation’s goal was to raise $12 million in funding towards the building of the Northwest Tower,” explained Ray Agnew, executive vice president of the Glens Falls Hospital Foundation. “We raised just over $14 million, and that level of success was largely due to Zone Capital Credits.

“We were approaching donors who would be making a gift of $20,000 or more, so the bottom-line, New York State tax deduction certainly put another arrow in our quiver.”

The solution
The $65 million, six-story addition, which opened in the fall of 2005, was the largest expansion project in the hospital’s 110-year history and a major community development project for Warren County. As the Empire Zone Administrator, EDC worked with GFH to access three rounds of Zone Capital Credits for this EZ approved project. “Usually, Zone Capital Credits are capped somewhere around $100,000,” explained EDC President Len Fosbrook. “But in the case of Glens Falls Hospital, the Foundation was so successful in raising money and the project was so significant in its impact on the community, that the Empire Zone Board sought approval for additional credits.”

Workforce Development: Making the connection between businesses, schools, and students

The Adirondack Business & School Partnership (ABSP) offers planned programs and services to make education relevant and exciting, and to ensure that our local schools have support from the business community to help produce a highly skilled workforce for our region.

The challenge
“The area had several good things going on, such as Junior Achievement and internships,” said Bill Flaherty, vice president of business services for National Grid. “What seemed to be missing was the overall coordination of services and a strategic vision to pull it all together.”

The solution
EDC was among the early participants who provided seed money to conduct a needs-analysis study. The group started with 25 businesses and seven participating school districts. Today, ABSP is a 501(c) 3 nonprofit organization with its own executive director, who coordinates programs and resources for students and educators. EDC continues to play a role on the board of directors and provides ongoing support of this workforce development initiative.

“Out latest innovation is the ABSP Connects Directory,” said Lisa Sax, executive director. “Students and educators can search our listings of business and industry professionals available to serve as partners in education through activities such as speaking to students about occupations, attending career fairs, offering tours, providing job shadowing, supplying curriculum materials and/or serving as a classroom volunteer.”