With record turnout for a single-topic-focused AHP event, we were thrilled to be able to share industry insights with so many professionals in our industry at the Campaign Excellence Summit. If you were unable to join us live, here are just a few of the insights shared that you can benefit from without the flight to Denver!
Erin Lanahan, president of TwinPoint Insights and interim managing director of the Philanthropy Leadership Council at the Advisory Board, found in her recent research on the campaign environment in healthcare philanthropy that 50% of healthcare foundations reported being in a campaign in any given year, and more organizations are conducting back-to-back campaigns.
“’Post-campaign’ is more and more becoming ‘inter-campaign,’” she said. Moreover, the size of those campaigns is growing steadily. The median campaign goal among respondents to Erin’s survey is $345 million, and some organizations reported running multiple, concurrent nine- and even 10-figure campaigns.
Erin’s research is ongoing. If you’d like to participate, you can sign up at twinpoint.org/campaign.
Get In on the Ground Floor
Campaign projects should always be tied to the hospital’s strategic plan. According to Jacob Heuser, system vice president of philanthropy at Unity Point Health, the best way to ensure that happens is to be involved in the strategic planning process. If you face resistance from senior hospital administrators, remind them that your perspective on which projects have donor appeal can help identify funding for strategic imperatives that may otherwise not fit into the hospital budget, and that philanthropy itself is a high-margin, high-ROI revenue stream for the organization that significantly impacts the organization’s ability to fulfill its mission.
Whatever you do, do not do it the other way around, cautions Betsy Chapin Taylor, FAHP, founder and CEO of Accordant. If you raise money for something that isn’t in the strategic plan, such as a pet project of a high-profile physician, you are in essence setting hospital strategy, which is not the foundation’s role.
Strategically Prioritize Campaign Projects
Sometimes the challenge is not identifying potential strategic projects but choosing the most promising from a long list of needs. Betsy offered a three-pronged approach for prioritizing potential projects in your campaign, emphasizing strategic alignment, donor appeal, and functional fitness. Strategic alignment requires that each project directly supports the foundation’s core mission and strategic goals, ensuring resources are focused on areas of highest impact. Donor appeal focuses on selecting projects that captivate and motivate potential donors, recognizing that even the most strategically aligned projects need passionate support to secure funding. Finally, functional fitness assesses the logistical and operational feasibility of projects, including budgeting, timelines, and resource availability, to ensure that proposed initiatives can be successfully implemented and sustained.
Don’t Ask for Money; Connect Passions with Projects
Sometimes the challenge is not identifying potential strategic projects but choosing the most promising from a long list of needs. Betsy offered a three-pronged approach for prioritizing potential projects in your campaign, emphasizing strategic alignment, donor appeal, and functional fitness. Strategic alignment requires that each project directly supports the foundation’s core mission and strategic goals, ensuring resources are focused on areas of highest impact. Donor appeal focuses on selecting projects that captivate and motivate potential donors, recognizing that even the most strategically aligned projects need passionate support to secure funding. Finally, functional fitness assesses the logistical and operational feasibility of projects, including budgeting, timelines, and resource availability, to ensure that proposed initiatives can be successfully implemented and sustained.
Paint a Picture for Potential Donors
Gifts are made first with the heart and then rationalized with the head, and painting a vision of a rosy future for your community engages donors’ hearts more than showing plans for a new patient tower. Randall Hallett, CEO and founder of Hallett Philanthropy, put this idea into practice when he was charged with raising funds for a new cancer center. When meeting with a prospective donor about the need, instead of leading with the building, he framed it as bringing cancer care better than that at MD Anderson to the local community. The donor was intrigued and offered a gift even larger than what the foundation expected to make the vision of exemplary cancer care come to life.
Present Your Vision in Your Donors’ Words
Jena Pado, CFRE, vice president and chief development officer, and Lindsay Ackley, CFRE, director of philanthropy, at Dayton Children's Hospital advocate for taking the time to engage donors when crafting your campaign messaging, and for using their words—not clinicians’ or foundation staff’s—when describing the vision and the need. For example, as they were building a case to support pediatric mental health, clinical staff preferred the term “behavioral health,” which they believed to be more progressive. In testing, however, it was revealed that “behavioral health” made parents feel guilty that they should be able to change or control children’s behavior. The foundation team at Dayton Children’s opted for “mental health” instead, over objections from the clinical staff, since this term was more likely to resonate with donors.
Similarly, when Jenna and Lindsay developed messaging to raise funds for health equity, they found during testing that while there was support for initiatives that addressed social determinants of health outside the hospital walls, the words “health equity” and “social determinants” were politically charged in their market. However, using the term “removing barriers to care” eliminated the political sensitivity and resonated with donors.
Go Your Own Way
Many presenters noted that there is no one-size-fits-all way to conduct a campaign, and Erin's research has uncovered campaigns that are not announced or branded and have no director, no dollar goal, and no cabinet.
It's ok to stray from the “textbook” approach if you find it doesn’t work in your organization or your market. For example, Arthur J. Ochoa, senior vice president of advancement and chief advancement officer at Cedars-Sinai, doesn’t use campaign cabinets, which in his experience take too much “care and feeding.” He also has found little value in branding externally, since donors’ interests transcend the construct of any campaign.
This doesn’t mean that campaigns don’t have value. Campaigns are effective to marshal internal resources and motivate staff. They also impact team loyalty, since many team members will stay on board for the duration. Campaigns are important, but they can take on a lot of forms.
“Ultimately, what is right for your campaign depends on the talents of your team,” Art said.
Don’t Give Up
Mark Larkin, CFRE, president of the foundation at Boca Raton Regional Hospital, encouraged conference attendees to be creative in the face of obstacles and noted that growth and success are possible even in markets where a multi-million-dollar gift might be a pipe dream.
“It doesn’t matter what the number is, you can grow that number in your market if you’re strategic,” he said.