How executive Dan Hilferty is making sure papal visit is paid for

As Dan Hilferty sat in St. Peter's Square in March 2014, waiting for Pope Francis to address thousands of pilgrims, a Vatican cleric walked over to him.

"Are you Dan Hilferty? I used to work for you," the young man said.

The cleric, who went on to translate the pope's address into English that day, had worked for Independence Blue Cross's public relations department before becoming a priest in the Philadelphia Archdiocese and moving to Rome on assignment.

As CEO and president of Independence Blue Cross, Hilferty, 58, of Ardmore, has connections around the region and the world. His Rolodex of relationships built over the years has proven valuable in his new volunteer role as chief fund-raiser for the papal visit.

For the last year, Hilferty has had one foot in the health-care world - Blue Cross covers 10 million people in 24 states - and another schmoozing with the city's most powerful corporations and philanthropists to bring in the $45 million needed for the city's papal visit.

"Dan is one of the most important go-to people in this business community," said David L. Cohen, senior executive vice president of Comcast and a member of the fund-raising committee for the World Meeting of Families Philadelphia 2015. "When anyone needs any help, when anyone needs support, Dan is one of the first names who always gets called, and to the best of my knowledge, he's never said no."

Hilferty obliged when Cohen and former Gov. Ed Rendell asked him to head fund-raising for the Democratic National Committee even after Hilferty had already committed to World Meeting of Families fund-raising.

Fund-raising for the DNC - which will surpass the $45 million World Meeting of Families price tag - won't kick into high gear until after the papal visit funding is complete, Hilferty said. He expects DNC fund-raising will involve more national support than the papal visit. Local donors solicited to give twice in one year will gladly do so, Hilferty predicts, given the impact both events will have on the region.

The stakes for bringing in the money are high. The World Meeting has said it will incur all expenses related to the visit. The City of Philadelphia will be reimbursed, spokesman Mark McDonald said, for every penny put toward the event.

"It's a big number," Hilferty said of the $45 million price tag. "You start with the security piece - based on size of the crowd, an assessment of the number of people and then they build a security number and then it develops over time - the city says these are our needs, archdiocese says here's where we are, and we arrive at a number."

The fund-raising process has ranged from selling $10,000 seats at a Union League luncheon, bringing in more than $1 million, Hilferty said, to chatting with a family from New Orleans over the phone who called hoping to make a small donation.

Hilferty won't reveal specifics on fund-raising or the donor list until the nonprofit reaches its goal.

The organization said in February that it had surpassed its $30 million mark, which Hilferty repeated last week. Neither the group nor Hilferty would provide an update. "We're confident we will get to where we need to be," he said. "They'll shoot me if I say anything else."

Bob Ciaruffoli, president of the World Meeting of Families, said so far he believes $45 million will cover everything. "Based on everything we know today, we believe we are within our budget. However, with all of the moving parts, it is still too early . . . to know our actual costs."

Hilferty, raised Catholic and a graduate of St. Joseph's University, chairs the five-member fund-raising team. Three of the committee's members are Jewish; Cohen, Rendell, and Joseph Neubauer, former CEO of Aramark, the official vendor for the papal events.

Wawa president Chris Gheysens has already said the company will make a significant corporate donation as well as provide food and one million water bottles to the Parkway. Beneficial Bank, Peco, and Exelon have also been involved.

Upon graduation from St. Joseph's, Hilferty worked with the Jesuit Volunteer Corps, running a community center in Portland, Ore. The experience got him interested in public service. He went to American University to pursue a master's in public policy.

John Griffin, former men's basketball coach at St. Joseph's, is a longtime friend and college classmate of Hilferty's.

"Dan has a social conscience - he clearly has what I would call kind of a public mission to make things better for people - and at Blue Cross he also has a keen business sense in terms of what's happening in health care," Griffin said.

At Blue Cross, Hilferty's job has shifted from a regional focus to national since passage of the Affordable Care Act. On a local level, he wants to see Philadelphia become the Silicon Valley for health-care innovation.

On a recent Wednesday, he started his day at DreamIt, a training program for health-tech start-ups funded in part by Independence Blue Cross. He addresses the group of millennials flanked by whiteboards, one with the word innovation printed in the middle.

"How cool is this?" Hilferty says of the entrepreneurs assembled.

One group is developing a "cooling cap" for chemotherapy patients, another a watch to better detect seizures in patients with epilepsy, a third a service to help professionals care for their aging parents. Hilferty offers them all resources at Blue Cross and encourages them to make Philadelphia their home.

When he gets back to the office, he asks a colleague to set up a meeting with two of the entrepreneurs - one a former Blue Cross employee.

"If there's one quality that jumps out to me with Dan, it's loyalty," Griffin said. "He remembers people, especially friends."

"And he's a fun guy - I would have to say if I looked back at my time in the public eye, I was probably a little too serious and Dan has found a way to smile, laugh, and have fun in his job," Griffin said.

The cheer is on full display after the DreamIt meeting when Hilferty insists on trying out an Indego ride-share bike, pedaling up and down a Center City sidewalk in his neatly pressed suit to show how easy the bikes - funded by Independence Blue Cross - are to rent.

Hilferty has had a personal commitment to health recently.

"I changed the way I eat six months ago - I run a health-care company," he explained. After a few very good weeks, he admitted he recently indulged in a cheesesteak - but only ate half. His son, one of his five children, helped him finish the rest.

"Dan understands healthier people are a whole lot less expensive than sick people - bike share promotes that," said Philadelphia Common Pleas Court Judge Renee Caldwell-Hughes, CEO of the Southeastern Pennsylvania chapter of the American Red Cross and also a board member of IBC. IBC has sponsored the Red Cross Red Ball every year, along with other events, and Caldwell-Hughes sits on IBC's board.

Caldwell-Hughes is also working on the papal visit. The Red Cross is on nine committees and will staff the shelters where volunteers and medics are staying, as well as help reunite families that get separated throughout the weekend.

"Dan's whole vision of making health care accessible and looking at technology in a way that we can make it more accessible to people is so important to our region," she said.

Hilferty said the bike-share partnership was actually finalized when he was in Rome with Nutter, on the same trip where he first met the cleric, the Rev. Brian Hennessy, and Pope Francis.

His wife, Joan, a former teacher, cried and embraced the pope. The two talked for 21/2 minutes as Hilferty, typically loquacious, quick to swap sports analyses and small talk with coworkers, stood in awe.

"Finally [Pope Francis] turns to me - I've met presidents, I've met business leaders from around the world, rock stars - [and] I had nothing. Nothing. And finally someone was just like 'Get him off the stage.' " Hilferty said. "It was overwhelming. I didn't anticipate it.

"But what I love about this guy is not only his theology but the practical use of what we should be doing as human beings to improve the world."

215-854-5506 @juliaterruso

This article has been corrected from an earlier version. Dan Hilferty is 58, not 68.