Mercy Community Healthcare adds director of development

Franklin-based Mercy Community Healthcare has hired a veteran local nonprofit executive to lead its development efforts.

Allison Bender has joined Mercy, which last year handled more than 26,000 patient visits last year, after spending more than eight years as executive director for The Shalom Foundation. There, she built donor support, opened and equipped a pediatric surgery center in Latin America and built partnerships with children’s hospitals and international pediatric surgical organizations. Before 2005, she was regional director for the Muscular Dystrophy Association for 187 years.