The Brian and Sheila Jellison Family Foundation is donating $25 million to Sarasota Memorial Healthcare Foundation—the largest donation in the healthcare foundation’s history—to help advance the mission of Sarasota Memorial’s Cancer Institute. 

The foundation is focused on three areas: helping people facing the challenges of cancer, promoting financial literacy and higher education, and supporting local communities of special importance to their family. Brian Jellison, the former chairman and CEO of Lakewood Ranch-based Roper Technologies, passed away from cancer in 2018.

The Jellisons' donation is the largest in Sarasota Memorial Healthcare Foundation’s history, pushing the foundation’s cancer campaign closer to its $75 million goal. In recognition of the gift, the cancer institute—which is expanding the local team of oncology specialists, while creating a centralized place that ensures coordinated care and ongoing support for patients and their families and caregivers—will be known as the Brian D. Jellison Cancer Institute. It will the eight-story oncology tower on the hospital's main campus, which is scheduled to open in 2021, as well as an outpatient radiation oncology center recently opened on University Parkway.