Joe Golding, CEO of Advancement Resources, was giving a presentation to faculty and health care providers from the University of Vermont Medical Center, the UVM College of Medicine and the UVM College of Nursing and Health Sciences when Yael Friedman noticed something unusual. Friedman, a major gift officer for Academic Health Sciences at UVM, noticed that every time Golding sat down, he put his foot up on the table in front of him. He also looked tired. Little did she know that Golding’s life was about to change radically – with her help.

Friedman asked Golding if he felt okay. He explained that he had just been diagnosed with a ruptured Baker's cyst, which can produce acute pain behind the knee. But his leg was swollen, and Friedman was concerned that he could have a blood clot.

She had experienced a small blood clot herself in 2014, after feeling pain in her legs. She also knew that Mary Cushman, M.D., UVM professor of medicine and medical director of the Thrombosis and Hemostasis Program at UVM Medical Center, was attending the next session of Golding’s presentation. So once Cushman arrived, Friedman asked her to take a look at Golding’s leg.

“His leg looked terrible,” says Cushman. “He told me about the Baker's cyst, but this looked like more than that. And he was about to fly, which would be a bad idea if he had a blood clot.”

Cushman arranged for an ultrasound that afternoon and fortunately, there was no blood clot. After asking Golding questions about how he had been feeling, Cushman learned that he had experienced some dizziness and some discomfort in his chest. She had a hunch.

“I had a feeling something wasn't right,” says Cushman. “And I've learned to act on those feelings. I was worried that it may have been a clot that had traveled up his leg to his lung.”

In the end, there was no blood clot in the lung, but the scan found something else: a mass in Golding’s chest.

Soon, after returning home to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Golding was diagnosed with lymphoma and began treatment, including chemotherapy. The chemo was so strong that, after a while, Golding had to stop.

“Something about my body couldn’t handle the chemo,” he says. “I had to discontinue it because it was killing me. The only way I survived lymphoma is because it was caught so early. The limited treatments I had – half of what was required – killed my cancer because of my early diagnosis. It was a life-changing experience.”

To thank Cushman, Golding and his wife, Cindy, decided to give $25,000 to a research project under Cushman’s watch. After Cushman offered several projects for consideration, the Goldings chose to support stroke research being done by Kara Landry, a fourth-year medical student at UVM who was working with Cushman. Landry, who received her M.D. in May 2015, recently started a neurology residency at UVM Medical Center.

“My grandfather had a stroke when I was five and was bed ridden after that,” says Golding. “I grew up visiting him every week. He was drugged up so much; he wasn't much more than a vegetable. It was a great fear of mine to end up like that.”

Golding’s life work with Advancement Resources is to research philanthropy and train development professionals and health care providers how to understand what motivates people to give.

“I truly believe that philanthropy is all about engagement,” he says. “And Mary was willing to listen and never shut me down as we talked, which takes the engagement beyond care. You start to think ‘Here's a person I have a connection with.’ It’s not just about my health care – it’s about something else. The deeper conversation is where philanthropy comes from.”