AHP Connect Articles

The Organization

The Situation

Sample Metrics

Intermountain Foundation

A decentralized system until 2012, it had 16 separate organizations raising money through events and annual

Central reports from a single database demonstrate ROI to regional directors and hospital executives.

fund activity. After recognizing the inefficiency (including 7 different databases) and risk (including possible compliance issues) in the system, a central foundation with five regions was created. Everything from annual fund appeals to database reports are now coordinated at the system level.

They track face-to- face visits, proposals asked and awarded, and dollars raised. The reports not only keep gift officers organized, but support requests to a hospital administrator for a new FTE.

Dignity Health Philanthropy

Currently a decentralized system, it has 31 foundations, each with separate bylaws and boards. Its current focus is on making its bylaws more consistent and moving the task of its boards to focus more on fundraising, retaining only core governance responsibilities.

They identify similar health systems and collect data on a number of measures such as yearly donations, number of FTEs, and yearly donations per FTE. This information can provide insight into growing or stagnant donations and can help make the case for hiring more FTEs.

Tracking yearly fundraising revenue at each of its foundations provides statistics that can be shared with hospital presidents, service

area leaders, and other leadership who want to know where their fundraising ranks.

Tracking transfers to the hospitals at each of its foundations shows whether the foundations are meeting their missions and shows the return on investment that Dignity Health makes in its foundations.

Advocate Charitable Foundation

A centralized foundation, it fundraises for 12 hospitals, from community hospitals to larger flagships. It exists, however, in competitive landscape, so it determines staffing patterns with benchmarking.

Only a couple gift officer metrics are tracked, but they are tracked weekly: total number of gift solicitations and total number of contacts. This information helps identify any barriers to their work.

Metrics help volunteers understand what true success is. Instead of competing for the best entertainment at their events, they know their event

goals are: instilling pride in the organization, building a portfolio of influence, and raising donations.

Data analysis also helps them project future growth and decide if they are building the capacity (i.e. adding FTEs) to sustain future growth.