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By Melinda Church
6-minute read
We, at Jarrard, wanted to know what’s keeping healthcare philanthropy professionals up at night. And how they’re addressing challenges in both their day-to-day work and long-term planning.
In this era of fiscal body blows to healthcare, economic uncertainty, new changes to tax laws for philanthropy and more, the pressure for increased fundraising is acute. Even the most seasoned, successful fundraising leaders are being tested as never before. And leadership expectations are rising as they increasingly view philanthropy as a strategic revenue source.
So we checked in with a select group – 33 to be exact – of healthcare philanthropy professionals representing academic medical centers, children’s and community hospitals and regional health systems. About half were chief philanthropy officers.
We asked them about teams, priorities, partnering with clinicians and researchers, engaging with boards and volunteers. And AI. Always AI.
Their thoughts provide strong, directional insight into the current state of healthcare fundraising and what we might expect in the months to come.
Their first takeaway is promising: Hiring for gift officers is strong and growing.
Takeaway 1: In general, team sizes are holding steady, with some concern about the year ahead
Although healthcare writ large is experiencing a steady, worrying beat of layoffs, our pulse check found that gift officers are in demand. Nearly two-thirds of respondents reported growth in the frontline fundraiser ranks – not surprising given the urgent need for increased private support for healthcare.
When asked which roles they would add if they could hire five new full-time team members, 27 out of 33 respondents identified gift officers as their top staffing need. Marketing, communications and donor relations professions were next on their wish lists.
While staff reductions and outsourcing were relatively limited, the two trends often occurred together in certain functions: research and analysis, donor relations and marketing and communications were most commonly reported as being outsourced.
Several respondents expressed concern about lacking the resources required to succeed against increasing fundraising expectations. In considering the year ahead, one respondent expressed concern about “champagne expectations for campaign fundraising with no increase to staffing or budget.”
Insight Into Action
Healthcare layoffs seem unlikely to end anytime soon, underscoring the need for philanthropy leaders to make a persuasive case internally for sustained investment. Lean on your data. Use your cost-to-raise-a-dollar metric as the foundation, along with growth in large gifts over the past few years. For shops successfully raising unrestricted or less-restricted support (e.g., to a cancer research general fund), bring those numbers to the fore. Most important: Proactively reach out to colleagues across the institution, leading with empathy and partnership, to explain philanthropy’s value.
Takeaway 2: Fundraising priority-setting: ideally, together
With healthcare organizations turning up the heat on philanthropy, how are funding priorities being created? And who is involved?
Here’s an inauspicious starting point: More than a quarter of respondents said key stakeholders — the development team, boards, volunteer leaders and clinician partners — lack clarity about the current funding priorities. Those from the largest fundraising teams reported the highest levels of awareness.
Other findings:
- Nearly two-thirds reported engaging clinicians and leaders in establishing philanthropy priorities, with children’s hospitals and larger fundraising teams outpacing others in involving these essential stakeholders.
- More than half of respondents said that they develop budgets for new large-scale fundraising initiatives — including support from all sources — before creating donor-facing propositions.
- Development teams are not always brought in early on capital projects and other initiatives requiring philanthropy. Just 36 percent said they are included in early-stage discussions, with an equal number saying the opposite.
Insight Into Action
Today, when fundraising teams are running flat out, the temptation might be to take shortcuts on engagement in setting philanthropic goals. Tempting, but short-sighted. From our experience with high-performing fundraising teams, the value of inclusive approaches is clear. Bigger ideas and greater philanthropy to fuel them are generated. Clinicians and leaders are thoroughly invested in fundraising success; they “own” the ideas and can speak fluently and persuasively about them with donors. And, by understanding strategic value of fundraising teams, clinicians and leaders will be more likely to ensure philanthropy leaders are at the table for those initial discussions about capital projects.
Takeaway 3: Equipping clinicians, leaders, boards and others to be effective partners
When asked about the effectiveness of primary healthcare fundraising partners – clinicians, researchers and volunteer leaders – our pulse check participants painted a mixed picture. The majority affirmed these stakeholders’ capacity to communicate a specific story of philanthropic impact, but nearly a quarter weren’t confident in their ability to articulate the institution’s case for giving.
Most respondents said they’re interested in deepening their partnerships with clinicians. The depth of such engagement, though, correlates with fundraising team size. The largest teams typically assign gift officers to clinicians and scientists, while smaller teams lack the bandwidth to bring clinicians more deeply into fundraising.
Boards and volunteer leaders are highly valued for their ability to open doors to their networks and act as ambassadors. However, nearly half of those who took the survey said they don’t measure their volunteers’ satisfaction.
Philanthropy training is an area of opportunity across the board:
- Roughly half of our respondents offer clinicians fundraising coaching, and doing so is far less common where development teams have 30 or fewer people.
- Just over one-third said they offer volunteer leaders training to help them be effective advocates.
Insight Into Action
Increasing training and coaching for clinicians and volunteer leaders is a clear win. In our experience, training volunteer leaders to tell the story of why they give their time and expertise to an institution both unlocks their capacity to attract new donors and deepens their own engagement and affinity. The same is true for clinicians and researchers, many of whom are far more accustomed to formal presentations at professional conferences.
Takeaway 4: The Wild West of AI in philanthropy
When asked about AI in fundraising, our pulse check participants mirrored the revolution underway across sectors.
Among all respondents, AI tools are most frequently used for communications, such as drafting case outlines and proposals. The smallest teams are far more likely to use AI tools for strategy, such as prospect research and portfolio analysis – which is exactly where leaders of larger teams see the greatest promise for their future AI use. Teams with 30 to 100 employees were more likely to report not using AI for any purpose.
When it comes to AI competency, most philanthropy leaders rate their teams as moderate. Training on the effective, ethical use of AI was evenly split, with the largest teams being much more likely to provide training.
About half of the respondents have fully formed AI policies or are well underway in developing them. Nearly one in 10, however, said they had not yet begun developing policies.
Insight Into Action
Continuous training in AI is imperative as tools and uses advance quickly. A Jarrard colleague describes AI as a “brilliant toddler,” possessing loads of information, but unable to reliably verify and extract meaning. Human judgment is indispensable to knowing what’s truly meaningful, spotting assertions based on limited data and avoiding “cognitive surrender,” the critical-thinking lapse so well described in a recent Economist piece. Also crucial: overcoming team members’ resistance to adopting AI. The path to success is through regular, hands-on training.
Finally, amid the fast-changing calculus for healthcare and philanthropy, the optimism inherent in fundraising leaders holds: Three-quarters of respondents said that their organization “has confidence in our ability to successfully navigate today’s challenges.”
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Contributors: Elizabeth Middleton, David Shifrin, Emme Nelson Baxter
Image Credit: Shannon Threadgill
