Jarrard Associate Vice President Elizabeth Middleton and Senior Vice President of Philanthropy Melinda Church attended the event. Here are their takeaways.
EVENT: AHP International Conference 2026
WHERE & WHEN: Nashville | October 7-9, 2026
With 1,200 attendees, this was AHP’s largest-ever gathering, indicating that organizations are treating philanthropy as a strategic priority rather than a “nice-to-have” supporting function.
Across sessions and hallway conversations, one theme kept surfacing: trust. We heard it in conversations about technology, about communities and about the teams and leaders doing the work. Here are three takeaways:
Trust in the AI age
The sessions drove home the same point: AI earns trust when people stay connected and accountable. Two examples:
- Inova Health Foundation showed what people-powered AI can look like in fundraising. To strengthen its mid-level pipeline, the team built a digital-first grateful patient donor acquisition program. AI helps prioritize leads and script outreach, then the gift officers build true, trusted relationships. This AI + human approach boosted mid-level revenue by 24% over the prior year-to-date and surfaced more than 300 new leads.
- Cedars-Sinai development communications leaders shared their Traffic Light Guardrail Matrix for ethical AI use. Green tasks use public information. Yellow tasks, such as drafting donor proposition outlines, require human review for accuracy, tone and empathy. Red tasks involving sensitive information stay out of public AI tools. Before publication, content passes a checklist built on five questions: is it true, is it ours, is it respectful, is it equitable and is it explainable?
No one suggested that technology will replace gift officers or communicators. Instead, it can give people more capacity to do what only humans can do, a win-win in a relationship-centered business.
Community trust
Rick Pollack, CEO emeritus of the American Hospital Association, was asked how philanthropy leaders can continue to build the case for investment in their teams. He suggested leaning into one of healthcare CEOs’ top priorities today: strengthening community trust. Philanthropy, he said, is a key lever for building and demonstrating trust.
Our 2026 Community Impact Survey of about 2,500 U.S. adults underscores that point. Nearly six in 10 Americans say hospitals’ role beyond medical care is critical or very important, yet only 29% strongly agree their local hospitals are good community partners. Among that 29%, people are almost twice as likely as others to contribute time or money to their hospital and advocate for it with policymakers.
This data is philanthropy’s opening: making donor impact visible demonstrates trust in action.
Keeping local philanthropic impact visible can be acutely challenging during mergers and acquisitions. Leaders at Novant Health and Cone Health emphasized the importance, especially in the early days, of assuring donors that their impact will stay local. Over time, gift officers can begin to help donors envision their impact on a larger scale across a system. But don’t rush it. Novant referenced an attempt at a systemwide annual fund appeal that underperformed. because donors had trouble seeing where they could really make a difference.
Making impact visible, locally or across a system, takes storytelling and collaboration. Pollack encouraged philanthropy teams to partner with their marketing and communications colleagues to tell more patient stories. Memorial Health Foundation, discussed below, shows what that partnership looks like in practice.
Team and leadership trust
Trust among colleagues and with institutional leaders was also a prominent theme. Again, two examples:
- IU Health described how a structure with many discrete teams had eroded trust among colleagues, and how the organization redesigned it. Following the reorganization, its Gallup engagement benchmark rose from the 34th to the 69th On the ground, leaders observed that innovation increased, productivity improved and cross-team collaboration took off.
- Memorial Health Foundation in rural southeast Ohio described moving its foundation and marketing department from “neighbors, but not partners” to integrated teams with representatives in each other’s meetings. Leadership has made the partnership an expectation, and philanthropy is now part of the health system’s strategic plan.
What we’re taking forward
The sessions pointed to the same conclusions. Donors and communities trust organizations that keep their impact visible and local. Colleagues trust teams that share goals and structure and celebrate wins together. Leaders trust philanthropy teams that show up with results. And technology can help when clear guardrails are in place. In each case, trust is built when people are present, prepared and accountable.
At Jarrard, we’ll keep exploring the themes of trust in healthcare philanthropy and community impact, alongside AHP members and our clients. If these themes resonate with your organization, we’d welcome the conversation. Contact us to set up a call.
