Despite reductions in medical reimbursements from the federal government and the squeeze put on many patients by a sluggish economy, many Cleveland-area nonprofit hospitals had banner fundraising years in 2004, thanks in part to a number of large, unexpected gifts, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reports.

Among those gifts was a $12 million bequest from the Porter Patterson estate to St. Vincent Charity Hospital, bumping the hospital's 2004 fundraising well above its 2003 total of $1.6 million. University Hospitals Health System also got an unexpected boost with a $1 million gift from an anonymous donor, raising its donations for the year to $45 million, more than double what it received in 2003. And the Cleveland Clinic raised a record $131 million in 2004, a 3 percent increase over the previous year, with $65 million of that coming through a $300 million capital campaign.

According to Fred Unger, head of the MetroHealth Foundation, raising money for nonprofit hospitals is about relationship building, which sometimes starts with the patient-doctor relationship. The foundation, which has grown from about $1 million to $16 million over the last seven years, raised roughly $4 million in 2004. "Of the four hundred visitors in the last six or seven years, every single one of them made a gift," Unger told the Plain-Dealer. "I don't know too many other nonprofits that can say that."