Beth Knowles

Beth Knowles

Wonderful relationships develop

Beth Knowles joined Mayo Clinic Jacksonville as a development officer in 2002, leaving a job she loved at the University of North Florida (UNF). What possessed her? "I was working in corporate and foundation relations at UNF and loving it," she explains. "But I always told myself Mayo Clinic was the one place that could pull me away. Of course, everyone loves working for Mayo, so they never leave. I didn't think a position would ever open up." One did. She applied. The rest is history. "I have the best job in the world," Knowles says. "I get to meet the most wonderful benefactors and hear their inspirational stories. It is a privilege and honor to interact with them on a daily basis. Mayo Clinic has changed their lives in so many ways."

Grateful patients can be surprising benefactors, and Knowles loves the range of relationships she has made as a Mayo development officer. "You never know about a person's propensity to give until you get to know them," Knowles says. "A person of average means can be as passionate about Mayo Clinic as a very wealthy benefactor." Knowles has dined over long lunches of fried chicken with benefactors in antebellum homes in the Deep South and attended no-nonsense meetings with philanthropists in Miami high-rises. "I love this spectrum of people who share a passion for Mayo," she says.

Knowles will never forget a visit to a mobile home in Pigeon Ford, Tenn. "I was visiting a gentleman whose trailer was perched on a cliff. I literally was afraid when I sat down that we were going to roll over the cliff," she remembers. "This wonderful man was including Mayo Clinic in his estate because of the care his wife had received. It was so touching to hear what he said about how Mayo had helped his wife."