In 1981, Frank Cunneen founded Cunneen Fundraising Services. During the early 1980's, the Cunneen Company reinvented and energized church annual giving campaigns beginning in New England and shortly thereafter nationally. Over the last two decades, these initiatives have raised over two billion dollars for church objectives.
When Mr. Cunneen initially entered professional fundraising in 1966, he served with a national consulting firm raising nearly one hundred million dollars for the Archdiocese of Chicago, the Archdiocese of Boston and the Diocese of Portland, Maine. In 1968 he accepted an invitation to become Director of Development for the Diocese of Erie, Pennsylvania where he remained for five years. He directed the first annual Catholic Charities Appeal for the diocese and one of the first annual diocesan appeals in the nation.
While in Erie, he was chairman of the Board of Crossroads, the alcohol rehabilitation organization that pioneered the concept of victimless crime and led the way to rehabilitation in place of incarceration for alcoholics.
Upon leaving Erie in 1972, he became Director of Development for the Hospital of St. Raphael, a 500 bed, major health care provider in New Haven, Connecticut. His first major objective was to complete a capital campaign to add a new thirty-eight million dollar wing to the hospital. In 1975 he created the first hospital foundation in New England and the first Catholic hospital foundation east of the Mississippi River. Under his direction, the foundation undertook the publication of the quarterly hospital foundation magazine Better Health still received by over one hundred thousand homes in the greater New Haven area.
After leaving the hospital in 1980, Mr. Cunneen directed capital campaigns for Sacred Heart Academy, Notre Dame High School and the Mercy Center all located in Connecticut. He also directed a successful appeal for Hewitt Memorial Home and Hospital for the Aged and served as fundraising counsel for the University of New Haven.
Mr. Cunneen's tenure as president and founder of Cunneen Fundraising began over 20+ years ago. Since those early days, the firm has served more than 5,500 communities on projects ranging from strategic planning and feasibility studies to annual fund drives and major capital campaigns. The firm and it's directors have earned an outstanding national reputation providing full-service counsel to churches, grammar schools, high schools, nursing homes, hospitals and cultural/arts institutions. Mr. Cunneen, with the assistance of his two sons, enjoys the same passion for philanthropy today that he first experienced over thirty-five years ago.
