By Arthur Lightbourn

Quick Facts Name: William S. Littlejohn Distinction: Since joining the Sharp HealthCare Foundation as CEO six years ago, the foundation’s philanthropic revenues have more than doubled and its number of donors has tripled. Born: Washington, D.C., 50 years ago. Grew up in McLean, Virginia, in a family of six children. Education: B.A. in economics, 1980, University of Virginia. Family: Married to Nebraska-born Lisa (nee Promes), they have two children: Will, 7, and Lauren, 5. Interests: Family, politics “as a fascinated watcher,” American history, collecting maps and working with community organizations. Current Reading: His Excellency: George Washington, by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Joseph J. Ellis. Favorite Getaway: Southern coast of Maine. Philosophy: “The whole concept of the joy of giving. I chose my profession, not only because I enjoy what I do, but I believe that philanthropy and giving provide the greatest legacy in our communities.”

To be a fundraiser undoubtedly takes a certain knack.

But it also helps to represent a worthy cause.

Take Bill Littlejohn for example.

He’s the CEO and senior vice president of the Sharp HealthCare Foundation, the philanthropic, not-for-profit, fundraising arm of the Sharp HealthCare network of hospitals and clinics.

Sharp HealthCare, with its four acute care hospitals, three specialty hospitals, three affiliated medical groups and 19 outpatient clinics, is San Diego’s largest health care provider.

In the past six years since Littlejohn joined Sharp, the Foundation’s philanthropic revenues have more than doubled, the number of donors have more than tripled, and it recently completed a $60 million campaign, the largest fundraiser in Sharp’s history.

And, to what does Littlejohn attribute the Foundation’s success, besides his personal fundraising expertise?

“People,” he said. “Many, many, many who are grateful for what Sharp provides both in its care and to the community;” people who have been showing their continual appreciation by donating some $20 million annually since 2002.

That plus the fact that Sharp has a reputation for health care excellence, as evidenced by its winning of the 2007 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award for its achievements and improvements in key areas of leadership, strategic planning, customer and market focus, measurement analysis, knowledge management, workforce focus, process management and plain old-fashion results. Sharp was the first health care system in California to win the U.S. Presidential award.

“Sharp is not just a hospital system,” he insists, “It’s a great community asset. It belongs to the community. It’s nonprofit…so many people don’t look at it as giving to Sharp; they look at it as investing in their community.”

The individuals, corporations and foundations, who give, Littlejohn says, essentially become “shareholders” and “partners” in Sharp.

We interviewed the 50-year-old executive in a second floor conference room of Sharp’s administrative offices in Kearny Mesa.

Tall (6-foot-2 and 200 pounds), articulate and amiable, Littlejohn, perhaps not surprisingly, initially considered a career as a diplomat in the U.S. Foreign Service. Born in Washington, D.C. and growing up in nearby McLean, Virginia, he was literally raised in a government environment. His dad was a security specialist with the Health, Education and Welfare Department. But politics eventually appealed to Littlejohn even more than government service and immediately after earning his B.A. in economics from the University of Virginia in 1980, he plunged into the Republican world of politics.

“I worked on the Virginia gubernatorial race in 1981 and a congressional campaign in California in 1982….and afterwards realized they were sort of short-term jobs and had to get serious about work, especially if you didn’t win, and we didn’t, so I then spent nine years with the American Cancer Society in various roles in Los Angeles and the Bay Area….as director of development and a senior vice president.”

Afterwards and prior to joining the Sharp HealthCare Foundation in 2002, he worked as a fundraising consultant for 10 years out of San Francisco and Los Angeles to some 100 hospitals from Nebraska and Iowa, throughout the Western U.S., to Hawaii, and including a stint as part-time counsel in fundraising and philanthropy to Sharp in San Diego.

“Then they [Sharp] tapped me to come work full time,” he said.

Sharp’s reputation and San Diego’s lifestyle convinced Littlejohn, a dad with two young children, to accept the opportunity, which turned out to be good for him and good for Sharp.

The Foundation is a continuation of the Sharp family’s legacy of giving originally created in 1950 with a $500,000 donation from San Diego rancher/developer Thomas E. Sharp in memory of his son, Lt. Donald N. Sharp, a World War II bomber pilot who died at age 22 during a bombing mission over Germany to destroy a key railway bridge near Bonn.

When his B-26 Marauder was struck by cannon and machine gun fire from enemy fighter planes, Sharp remained at the controls giving four members of his crew time to parachute to safety before his plane crashed killing him and his navigator.

Tom Sharp’s donation, coupled with community contributions, helped fund the future Donald N. Sharp Memorial Community Hospital that welcomed its first patient in 1955. In 1979, the Sharp HealthCare Foundation was established.

“Many hospitals were founded through philanthropy,” Littlejohn said. “They were either founded by community philanthropy or religious organizations. It was probably in the late ’60s and early ’70s when Medicare came around that the whole financial equation in hospitals began to change.

“Primarily, in the past, people either just paid to go to the hospital or they had traditional insurance programs and everybody was sort of OK with that.”

With the impact of Medicare, he said, many hospitals had to form philanthropic fundraising foundations to meet growing financial challenges and cuts in reimbursements.

Because there is no county hospital in San Diego, local hospitals and community clinics also must bear 100 percent of the uncompensated care for San Diego’s 600,000 uninsured.

Especially in the last decade, he said, foundations have reemerged as a powerful source and component of excellence in health care in providing funding for new and modernized facilities, new technologies, specialized programs and community health classes.
Despite the current downturn in the economy, Littlejohn is convinced future of fundraising opportunities for Sharp are “great.”
“We think there is still tremendous potential to both provide for San Diego’s health care in the future but also have people participate in it philanthropically.

“I think we are seeing both in San Diego and around the country a re-birth of both the pride of association and the value that people place on their health care providers.”

Even if, in future, a national health care system is established, he ventured, there will always be a need for a community philanthropic involvement to guarantee excellence in health care.

“I chose my profession, not only because I enjoy what I do, but I believe that philanthropy and giving provide the greatest legacy in our communities. Very few people know what William Stanford did for a living, that he ran the Union Pacific Railway, but they know the university he created through a gift. That’s my philosophy. Your life is truly created through what you give.”

Littlejohn and his wife, Lisa, have two young children, Will 7, and Lauren, 5. They met and married in Omaha, Nebraska, 10 years ago.
Littlejohn is an avid collector of maps, all kinds, from road maps to historical maps. “You can learn a lot by looking at a map,” he says.