Laura Fitch
Laura Fitch has been an accomplished philanthropy fundraiser for over 30 years. She has raised funds to address the critical financial needs of cancer care, cardiac care, transplants, Parkinson’s and hospice in the Denver area as well as global medical missions in orthopedics. In addition to healthcare, she has raised money for education, battling child abuse and helping veterans dealing with PTSD.
For the past 18 years, she has focused on the Foundation at AdventHealth, formerly Centura Health. She started as the director of events where she created, developed and executed all aspects of fundraising events. The fundraising events served as strong way to identify and engage donors as well as increase giving. Strategic planning, budgeting, project management, event staff and volunteer supervision, corporate sponsorship solicitation and event marketing are some of her favorite tasks and strengths. She demonstrates strong skills in strategic marketing, planning and program development. She is continually recognized for an unparalleled ability to achieve ambitious goals while improving efficiency and effectiveness and increasing net profits.
In her current role as chief development officer, she is able to match her desire for making a difference in the community and sharing AdventHealth’s mission. As the chief development officer working at Porter Hospital, she is responsible for all charitable giving. In addition to working with identifying and focusing on the greatest current needs at Porter, she is building long-term solutions such as a new Hospitality House that will provide a safe and supportive place to stay for patients and their families coming to Denver for cancer care and life changing transplants. Her fundraising efforts enable orthopedic surgical teams and volunteers from Porter Hospital and other local hospitals to travel with operation walk Denver to developing countries and provide life changing hip and knee replacements to those that would otherwise not be able to get this care. Operation Walk Denver has enabled over 1,300 people in Panama and other Latin American countries to walk at no cost to the patients!
Laura has also volunteered her talents to the University of Denver, including the Executive Advisory Board at Daniels School of Business and vice chair of special events for the DU Parents Association Council (2008-2016). She is currently a board member for Freedom Service Dogs of America, Cancer League of Colorado, Rotary, a sustaining member of the Junior League of Denver, Girl’s Inc., Kempe Children’s Center and a member of the alumnae board of the Gamma Phi Beta Sorority, Planned Giving Roundtable and the Association for Healthcare Philanthropy.
Prior to her career in philanthropy fundraising, Laura was the vice president of human resources for Raymond James Consulting, director of operations for USA Direct, and university representative for the University of Phoenix. She holds a BS in Speech Pathology and Audiology from the University of Denver and an MBA with an emphasis in Marketing from the University of Colorado Boulder.
Laura’s family is a DU family. She and her husband, Carl, met as students the first day on DU’s campus and have been together for over 40 years. Her two grown daughters, Andrea and Danielle, both have undergraduate and graduate degrees from DU. Her beautiful new granddaughter, Calia, already wears DU outfits and perhaps could be a DU alum in the future! She enjoys hiking, biking, travel, golf and spending time with her family.