"Will you buy me lunch?"

Last summer, as Grady Memorial Hospital stumbled toward financial collapse, Pete Correll, a former chief executive of one of Atlanta's biggest corporations, posed that request to another former chief executive, who also happened to help lead the largest family of philanthropic foundations in the Southeast.

Of course, Correll wanted much more than a full stomach.

"I need you to help me," he recalled telling his lunch mate and friend, former SunTrust Banks chief executive Jimmy Williams.

Part of a team of business leaders hoping to rehabilitate Grady, Correll wanted a donation toward their goal of building a $200 million fund —- a sum so large that a respected nonprofit could easily consume five years squeezing donors to get it.

Williams said that during the lunch he didn't make any commitments. But he did make clear that the foundations he chaired had sufficient "capacity" to help in a very big way.

"If it's 200 million, we can handle 200 million," Williams said he told Correll, whom years earlier he had helped get the CEO post at paper products giant Georgia-Pacific.

"I was floored," Correll said. "It's just an unbelievable commitment to the city."

Change in support

The understated offices of metro Atlanta's biggest philanthropic giver —- the publicity-shy Robert W. Woodruff Foundation —- are on the 12th floor of the historic Hurt Building, just three blocks from the city's neediest hospital. Yet little of the foundation's largesse went directly to Grady.

Over the seven decades since Coke's legendary boss created the foundation —- renamed for him only after his death —- it and affiliated foundations gave a total of less than $2 million to the hospital. That's about 1 percent of how much the combined foundations gave last year to all nonprofits.

With word that the long-ailing hospital really was in trouble, the foundation's trustees abruptly —- if carefully —- decided to make a giant change.

Monday, leaders of a nonprofit corporation formed to oversee Grady announced what had been openly speculated: the Woodruff Foundation is the secret donor that promised to give $200 million over four years toward equipment purchases and other non-operating costs.

The contribution was a critical piece in winning support to shift Grady's management from a board of government appointees to a private, nonprofit corporation.

The $200 million won't meet all of Grady's needs. But the donation is the third-largest ever bestowed by Woodruff-affiliated foundations, entities which together have made their mark throughout the community. The largest and second-largest gifts, amounting to $240 million in 2006 and $204 million in 1996, were given for medical research and treatment facilities at Emory University.

With more than $7 billion in assets primarily in Coke stock, the combined foundations give away about $200 million a year. Woodruff and related money birthed the Woodruff Arts Center, turned Emory into a major medical research center, laid the groundwork for Centennial Olympic Park, helped encourage expansion in the Emory area of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and helped lure CARE and the American Cancer Society to Atlanta.

Their giving spans from private schools, such as Woodward Academy, to area universities and early education programs. They poured money into programs for affordable housing, the Atlanta Union Mission, environmental programs, Midtown pedestrian improvements, children's health care and the Atlanta History Center.

Woodruff gives virtually all its donations in Georgia.

"It's all about creating Atlanta and Georgia into a world-class city and a world-class state," said Del Martin, the chairman of Atlanta-based fund-raising consultant Alexander Haas Martin & Partners.

Much of Woodruff's money has gone to causes with connections to Grady. Medical research dollars and money for doctor training ended up benefiting the hospital designated to help the area's poorest people. Woodruff-related foundations also injected money into a $30 million project by Children's Healthcare of Atlanta to take on management and renovation of Grady Health System's Hughes Spalding Children's Hospital.

But Grady and its affiliated Grady Foundation struggled to get direct major donations. The hospital looked like a bottomless pit, racked by financial turmoil, political wrangling and management turnover.

"When someone is thinking about giving a large gift, they want to feel good about where they give," Martin said. "They don't give it because they think something is about to go down the drain. They give because they think something is successful and doing a good job."

The hospital's image was so tarnished that several years ago board members of its fund-raising Grady Foundation considered dropping Grady from the foundation's name.

A reason to step in

Over the years, Grady and Woodruff officials "had informal conversations from time to time" about the hospital's needs, said Russ Hardin, Woodruff Foundation president.

Foundation officials had reservations about giving a large chunk of money to a taxpayer-supported hospital. They were wary of the hospital's governance structure. And Hardin viewed Grady's struggle as part of much larger national health care issues. For Woodruff to solve such problems would "be like a finger in the dike," he said. "Our resources are inadequate."

In addition, "Grady lost money 10 out of the last 11 years," Hardin said. "We don't make donations to any organization that operates at a deficit."

Yet, by the time Correll made his pitch to his friend Williams and other Woodruff representatives last summer, foundation leaders saw reason to step in. Grady was at or near insolvency. Prominent business leaders were pushing for change. And supporters had a plan for solving Grady's operating problems long-term.

Correll recalled his initial conversation with Williams over a catered lunch in Williams' second-floor office at SunTrust.

"His concerns were simply, 'Is this real or is this cosmetic? Are we as a community really going to have the commitment to make this level of change?' All I could say is, 'I don't know, Jimmy.' "

Talks about the potential $200 million gift continued. Woodruff officials wanted to avoid the political infighting around the shift in Grady's control to a new board. And they didn't want to be seen as trying to force the change, said Jimmy Sibley, a Woodruff trustee and who is retired from the King & Spalding law firm.

"We want to do something good," the 88-year-old Sibley said.

Fellow trustee Williams saw things falling into place for an Atlanta institution. "We want to be a part of something of this magnitude," he said.

As low-key as Woodruff positions itself, it often focuses on giant projects that need what Sibley described as the "big money."

And, said Hardin, "There is not a greater need in Atlanta than saving Grady."

ALL IN THE GIVING FAMILY

The Robert W. Woodruff Foundation is one of several related foundations that share offices and staff and have had ties to legendary Coke CEO Robert W. Woodruff, aka The Boss. Some of the foundation trustees serve on more than one of the foundations.

Robert W. Woodruff Foundation Created by Robert W. Woodruff in 1937, it was named the Trebor Foundation ("Robert" spelled backward) until after his death. Also includes money from his wife's estate. The Woodruffs didn't have any children.

Assets: $2.7 billion

Annual giving: $95.2 million in 51 grants (2007)

Focus: Education, health care, human services, economic development, arts and cultural affairs, conservation and environmental education.

Chairman: Jimmy Williams (pictured at left), Coca-Cola Co. board member, former chairman and CEO of SunTrust Banks

TRUSTEES, FOUNDATIONS

Trustees: Jimmy Sibley, former King & Spalding attorney and one of Robert Woodruff's lawyers. His father, a former vice chairman of the Grady board and chairman of SunTrust predecessor Trust Co., has been described as Woodruff's best friend;

Wilton Looney, former chairman and CEO of Genuine Parts;

Charles "Pete" McTier, former Woodruff Foundation president;

Charles Ginden, retired SunTrust executive.

THE OTHER FOUNDATIONS

Joseph B. Whitehead Foundation* —- An early Coke bottler; his son, Joseph Whitehead Jr., started the foundation.

Assets: $876 million

Last annual giving: $24.4 million in 22 grants

Lettie Pate Whitehead Foundation —- An early Coke bottler; her son, Conkey Pate Whitehead, started the foundation.

Assets: $990 million

Last annual giving: $22.9 million in 215 grants (2007)

Lettie Pate Evans Foundation —- Coke bottler Lettie Pate Whitehead remarried; she established the foundation.

Assets: $332 million

Last annual giving: $8 million in six grants

Lettie Pate Evans (Restricted) Foundation* —- Coke bottler Lettie Pate Whitehead remarried.

Assets: $1.6 billion

Last annual giving: $41.1 million

Robert W. Woodruff Health Sciences Center Fund*

Assets: $665 million

Last annual giving: $14.4 million

*2006 figures

Sources: Woodruff Foundation Web site, 990 tax filings by the entities, AJC research