About Us

Stuart R. Smith, CFRE, FAHP

Stu has forty years of experience in resource development. For more than thirty of those he has held significant leadership roles in managing hospital and health system foundations. Prior to forming his own consulting practice, Not for Profit Resource, LLC, Stu served as President and CEO of the Banner Health Foundation and its predecessor, Samaritan Foundation, for 27 years. That foundation is the philanthropic resource for Banner Health, one of the nation's largest not-for-profit, non-secular health systems and Arizona's leading health care provider. Stu served as Executive Director of the Shadyside Hospital Foundation in Pittsburgh and as Director of Community Relations and Development at United Hospital in New York.

Stu's development experience also includes youth services and higher education, ranging from organizing start-up development programs to engineering major gift initiatives exceeding $100 million. He has been an executive with the Boy Scouts in New Jersey and New York as well as Associate Director, Development for Canisius College and Director of Development for Kenmore Mercy Hospital.

Stu served as Chair of the Association for Healthcare Philanthropy (AHP) in 2002/3. He also served six years as Chair of AHP's Board of Certification amongst other national chairmanships and is a founding board member of Certified Fund Raising Executive International (CFRE.)

He has received many awards including the Si Seymour Award, AHP's international honors award, AHP's Award of Excellence for Capital Campaigns, and the “Outstanding Executive Fund Raiser” Award, by the Greater Arizona Chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals. He was named the 2006 recipient of the Linda Vollstedt Award for service & leadership in women's sports, bestowed by the Safeway International LPGA Golf Tournament.

Stu serves numerous organizations in a volunteer capacity. He serves as a mentor in programs for both the Arizona Chapter of AFP and in the Arizona Planned Gift Roundtable. He provided volunteer leadership to the Grand Canyon Council of the Boy Scouts of America, which awarded him the Silver Beaver Award in 2002. He serves as a board member of the Palms Clinic Foundation, and he is Secretary of the Phoenix Crisis Nursery Foundation & former Chair and current board member of the Crisis Nursery operating board.

He is founding member and has server on the faculty for the AHP Institute for Healthcare Philanthropy at the University of Wisconsin, and was on the faculty and Advisory Council to the Postgraduate program for Fund Raising Management at Adelphi University.

Stu has published numerous articles including a Chapter on “Performance Benchmarking: Lessons on using performance benchmarks to maximize fundraising results” in the 2005 publication Expanding the Role of Philanthropy in Health Care . He continues to serve as faculty at many regional and national conferences. Recent presentations include; “Leadership Experience Firsthand”, “So you have Benchmarks; now What?”, “How to get the Best Board & the Best from Them”, and board retreat presentations “Taking Fund Raising Seriously & Keys to the Kingdom-Major Gifts & the Hospital Team”.

Stu holds a B.A. degree from St. Vincent College, Latrobe, Pennsylvania and is a graduate of the Stanford Executive Program, Graduate School of Business, Stanford University and the AHP Executive Management Institute at Duke University.