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CONTENTS
8 7 6 5
Letter from the Chair
By Arthur J. (Art) Ochoa, JD
Letter from the CEO
By Alice Ayres, MBA
Letter from the Editor
By Olivia Hairfield
Mapping Our Way to an Inclusive Donor (and Team) Experience
By Jessica Woodard, Kristin Priest, MA, CFRE, and Kathy Dalton
Each donor is unique, and their experience should be too. Explore how donor journey mapping can transform your fundraising efforts by guiding donors through a thoughtful, personalized giving process.
14
Old and Trusted or a Cinderella Story? Selecting the Right Committee Members for Your Capital Campaign
By Joan M. Bindel, MBA, CFRE
Bringing the right team together can make or break your capital campaign. Discover the key players you will need for success.
A Framework for Healthcare Philanthropy Leadership
By Gary Hubbell
Read about how Hamilton Health Sciences Foundation transformed its leadership approach, fostering a resilient, high-performing team ready to tackle complex challenges. Learn how you can apply their process of intentional leadership development to enhance performance and create a thriving culture of well-being.
AHP Healthcare Philanthropy Journal | Fall 2024
President and Chief Executive Officer: Alice Ayres, MBA
2024 AHP Journal Advisory Council
Chair: Robert Nolan, FAHP, CFRE
Members:
Murray Ancell, MS, CFRE
Mendal Bouknight
Michelle J. Collins
Sarah Fawcett-Lee, CFRE
Jolene Francis, FAHP, CFRE
Matthew Lang, CFRE
Ben Mohler, MA, CFRE, ACFRE
Andrea Page, FAHP, CFRE
Harrison Porter, CAP, CFRE
Elizabeth Rottman, CFRE
AHP Board of Directors:
Chair: Arthur J. (Art) Ochoa, JD
Vice Chair: Tammy Morison, CFRE
Secretary/Treasurer: Shawn A. Fincher
Immediate Past Chair: Randy A. Varju, MBA, FAHP, CFRE
Directors:
Julie E. Cox, FAHP, CFRE
Jeanne Jachim, MBA
Crystal Hinson Miller
Preston Walton
Published by: Association for Healthcare Philanthropy, 2550 South Clark Street, Suite 810, Arlington, VA 22202
Managing Editor: Olivia Hairfield
Business Manager: Michelle Gilbert
About Us: The Association for Healthcare Philanthropy (AHP) is the healthcare development professionals’ definitive source of thought leadership, connections to facilitate innovation, and tools to advance knowledge and elevate philanthropy. As the world’s largest association for healthcare fundraising professionals, AHP represents 7,000 members who raise more than $11 billion each year for community health services. Our mission is to inspire, educate, and serve those transforming healthcare through philanthropy.
The Journal’s Mission: Healthcare Philanthropy will be an authoritative resource for healthcare development professionals by providing a timely, informative, and insightful collection of literature that will raise the standard of individual and organizational performance. Serving as the premier forum for healthcare philanthropy literature, the Healthcare Philanthropy journal will educate, empower, and inspire development professionals and, thereby, help strengthen the case for philanthropic support and the mission of AHP.
Letter from the Chair
Ican’t believe the International Conference in San Diego is just a few weeks away. I look forward to seeing so many of you as we come together for great conversation, learning, and celebrating the outstanding members of our community. With over 40 educational sessions, dynamic learning labs, the Awards Dinner, and even sunrise yoga, I know you’ll be fully engaged.
The fall 2024 edition of Healthcare Philanthropy is a great starting point for the conversations to come at AHP International. The articles explore familiar topics, but each author brings their unique perspective.
● Jessica Woodard, Kristin Priest, and Kathy Dalton evaluate the donors at Intermountain Health to discover opportunities for connection. Read about their process to better understand and support Intermountain’s donors.
● Joan M. Bindel draws inspiration from the WNBA when putting together the perfect committee for a capital campaign. Who do you want on your team?
● Gary Hubbell guides readers through the intentional leadership process the team at Hamilton Health Sciences Foundation pursued during the COVID-19 pandemic. Go in-depth on the strategic changes that helped propel the team forward.
I hope you feel inspired by these articles and find new ways to grow and support your community.
Warmest regards,
Art
Arthur J. (Art) Ochoa, JD
AHP Chair of the Board of Directors, Senior Vice President, Advancement and Chief, Advancement Officer Cedars-Sinai
CEO Corner
As I reflect on the past year, I want to begin by expressing my gratitude for our members and your unwavering dedication to both healthcare philanthropy and to AHP. Your support and engagement mean more than ever, and it is because of your commitment that we continue to grow, evolve, and serve so many wonderful professionals in our field. Your enthusiasm has helped drive our membership to double in the past five years!
Many of you shared your thoughts on AHP in our bi-annual membership engagement survey, which was in the field this summer. This survey helps us learn more about the things you value from AHP and also what you’d like to see done differently. I am excited to share the results, which highlight the collective progress we’ve made together. We’ve heard your voices and are thrilled that so many of you view AHP as welcoming and inclusive—a trusted advocate for our profession that fosters innovation and excitement about healthcare philanthropy. We’re happy to provide a community where you feel like you belong.
Alice Ayres, MBA President and Chief Executive Officer of AHP
Membership satisfaction has soared since 2022, a testament to the passion and drive each of you brings to the organization. We’re delighted you believe our events and programs are accessible and our content to be among the best in the field. You have a great time at our International Conference and benefit from our publications like the Report on Giving. You motivate us to keep pushing forward and improving our resources, knowing that we are making a difference together.
As we look to the future, I want you to know that AHP is here for you. In the survey, you also shared the areas where AHP needs to grow to better serve you. We will work to provide more support for the challenges you face and your need to connect with peers who share your interests and experiences. We will continue to listen, adapt, and advocate for those things that matter most to you. Together, we are shaping the future of healthcare philanthropy, and I am excited for what lies ahead.
Thank you for being a part of this journey and for trusting AHP. We are so grateful for your membership, and we look forward to making an even greater impact together in the year to come.
All my best,
Alice
Letter from the Editor
Dear Readers,
I’m excited to share some significant news with you about the future of Healthcare Philanthropy. As we’ve evolved over the years, so has the way our members consume and interact with information. To better serve you, we’ve decided to make an exciting shift.
Starting in 2025, we’ll be transitioning from a traditional journal format to a more frequent, condensed article series. Our new series will focus on delivering the same quality insights, analysis, and expert perspectives, but in a more accessible, digestible form that fits the pace of today’s fast-moving world. We will publish more often, giving you timely updates on key trends and developments across healthcare philanthropy.
Olivia Hairfield Editor of Healthcare Philanthropy AHP
Rest assured, the rigor and standards of excellence you’ve come to expect from AHP will remain unchanged. We are committed to maintaining our reputation as a trusted resource for thought leadership and discourse.
As we embark on this new chapter, we invite you to share your thoughts and feedback. Together, we’ll continue to grow and learn.
Thank you for your continued support.
Warm regards,
Olivia
Mapping Our Way to an Inclusive Donor (and Team) Experience
By Jessica Woodard, Kristin Priest, MA, CFRE, and Kathy Dalton
As fundraisers, we’re also storytellers— and every donor has a story. When we can identify what those stories are and understand the kind of path our donors follow at each stage of the giving process, we can gently guide their journey, connect with them at a deeper level, build strong relationships, and improve fundraising results.
Donor journey mapping is a process to help organizations understand their current donor experience, identify opportunities to improve,
and implement a plan that enhances their experience. While not a “quick fix” fundraising solution (meaningful change is rarely instant), it’s an excellent way to engage, upgrade, and retain your donors.
Donor journey mapping borrows from the for-profit sector, which has long understood the importance of customer journeys and the role this plays in creating exemplary brand experiences. Brand experience combines sensations, feelings, cognitions, and behavioral
responses evoked by brand-related stimuli that are part of a brand’s design and identity, packaging, communications, and environments.
A great brand experience makes customers feel recognized, heard, and valued. Whether for-profit or nonprofit, when an organization provides an excellent experience, it deepens the connection a donor feels with their organization. This leads to increased loyalty, greater satisfaction, and a better ROI, especially when compared to the cost of acquiring new donors.
An excellent donor experience:
● Makes giving easy and joyful.
● Creates a great first (and second and third and fourth) impression.
● Invites additional ways to experience the brand.
● Communicates impact.
● Nurtures the highly involved donors.
Recently, Intermountain Health undertook a two-day donor journey mapping exercise to create a strategy to engage new donors with the capacity to become mid-level donors. They knew the time was right—like many healthcare organizations, the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic brought in a new group of healthcareaware donors that they didn’t want to lose. Their goals were to identify and refine more strategic new donor journeys to drive stronger retention, earlier upgrades, and increase the number of donors giving $1k+ annually. These potential mid-level donors were inspired to make their first gift during the extraordinary environment of the pandemic and required a distinct donor journey. If the team at Intermountain could understand the path, they would be in a better position to make it smoother and more rewarding.
“I think it’s always a challenge to really have an in-depth understanding of what our donor behaviors are and what their preferences are,” said Kathy Dalton, annual giving specialist at
Intermountain Health. “We knew that we had a really strong base of donors, but we really had a hard time figuring out how to effectively engage them in the ways that resonate with them at a deeper level. There wasn’t a clear picture of how the donors move through the different stages of giving and go from that first-time donor to a larger, more committed donor.”
Understand the Current Donor Experience
Before you can improve your donor experience, you have to take stock of the current one. “Donors” is a big category, one that’s too general and universal to approach with a single strategy.
The team at Intermountain Health used their existing donor data to identify the new donors they wanted to focus on. They did their donor journey mapping homework by:
● Defining the audience: Donors who had the potential to make a $1k gift.
● Defining the problem they were solving: Retaining and upgrading these donors more efficiently.
● Determining the demographics of their audience: On review of their data, they found that their target group was primarily female, married, and over the age of 34.
With a clear picture of their donors in mind, the team first mapped their current state, identifying gaps and opportunities.
“We identified some gaps in communication and where those touchpoints were, and we tracked what those motivations are,” Dalton said. “I think a lot of us on our team are just very visual people, and it really helped to visually work through that with our team. We [discovered that we] weren’t really using our data as well as we’d hoped.”
The New Donor Journey Framework
The journey from first-time to devoted giver goes through several stages:
Consideration: Before making a gift, the donor learns that the organization exists and that giving is possible. They consider whether they want to give. This phase can last 10 seconds or for years, but it ends when the donor decides to make their first gift.
First Gift: The donor makes their first gift. Unfortunately, for the vast majority of givers, this is the end of the journey.[1] That’s why continuing to engage them and point them toward the next step is so important.
Education: The donor learns more about the organization and the impact of their gift.
Second Gift: They give again. The odds of them becoming a regular donor increase dramatically. [2]
Mid-Level Invitation: The donor is invited to give more and is solicited and stewarded as a mid-level donor.
At each stage, the organization invites the donor to connect more, learn more, and become more committed to the cause.
What Does a Donor
Journey Mapping Exercise Look Like?
Mapping a new donor journey is a group endeavor. The more cross-department collaboration you can cultivate, the better.
“Our marketing communications team, our stewardship, our data people, even some of our major gift people were part of the conversation,” Dalton said.
This helped the team at Intermountain Health create a shared vision for the future state of their new donor journey.
The Current State and Target Group
The donor journey mapping exercise begins with describing the current state and identifying the particular donor population you’re trying to engage.
Goals, Touchpoints, and Feelings
Then, the team begins to imagine a future donor journey together. They describe the goals and touchpoints for donors at each stage of the journey. In addition, they describe the feelings associated with each stage.
For example, during the education phase, you may want the donor to learn specific things about the impact of their gift. The touchpoints could include an impact report, an email update,
or a video. The associated feelings might be curiosity, inspiration, or satisfaction.
These ideas are all added to a sticky note mural of the journey framework (you can physically create one with real sticky notes or use a digital tool) for consideration. Once the mural is complete, participants can identify opportunities to provide new donors with an exceptional brand experience.
As you look at all the touchpoints and experiences your donors have, look for where you’re delighting them. Do you send a popular holiday card? Call just to say thank you? Share inspiring videos?
On the flip side, you should also look for the spots in the journey where you may be disappointing your donors. Does every email start with “Dear Friend” instead of their name? Do they go a long time without hearing from you after they give? Does every communication you send them contain an ask? Are there inconsistencies in brand look, feel, and messaging?
Looking at those disappointing spots may feel disheartening at first, but it will show you exactly where to focus your efforts. These moments of truth ensure you won’t miss out on opportunities to delight your donors in the future.
Evaluating Opportunities
At this point, you might find yourself either buzzing with excitement or completely overwhelmed with all the opportunities your team has identified. The evaluation section of the exercise will help you choose which opportunities to implement and which to set aside.
Each opportunity is plotted on a matrix with an axis of the organization’s ability to implement the opportunity, and another axis of how much impact the opportunity is likely to have. This will divide the opportunities into four categories:
High impact/highly able to implement = No brainers
These are improvements that will require littleto-no effort to complete.
High impact/low ability to implement = Transformative
These represent a marked improvement in operations that positively impact your fundraising, but that will be harder to implement.
Low impact/highly able to implement = Quick wins
These are simple and swift changes to improve fundraising performance.
Low impact/low ability to implement = Derailers
These efforts will cause fundraising to deflect from its purpose or direction.
Moments of Truth and Committing to a Plan
If you approach the evaluation phase with
stringent honesty about your capacity and the potential for impact, you’ll uncover powerful moments of truth that can reveal how to prioritize your fundraising activities in the new donor journey.
Once you’ve determined your transformative, no-brainer, and quick-win opportunities (and discarded all derailers) it’s time to build a plan. Create a section for each kind of opportunity and identify which pain point the opportunity will solve for, which department will own the effort, and which staff members or leadership will serve as champions.
If you find your donor journey plan still feels a bit overwhelming, consider further prioritizing by assigning a 1-5 scale of effort and impact to help track the weight of the “lift” on each strategy or tactic.
This document will be the basis of your plan. As you go on, you can add timelines and logistics for implementing it, along with establishing methods for ongoing collaboration.
Intermountain Health’s
Donor Journey Mapping
Journey
With a better picture of their current state, gaps and all, the team at Intermountain Health brainstormed their future new donor journey, creating many potential opportunities. Together, they identified transformative opportunities, like partnering with more of their caregivers in storytelling, streamlining the operations of mid-level gift officers, communicating program impact more, and personalizing stewardship. They settled on some quick wins, like segmenting their communications, eliminating the use of “Dear
Friend,” and implementing a new donor welcome series. They found no-brainers, like aligning on how they talk about the role of the donor across departments and creating new brand awareness.
Donor journey mapping helped the team at Intermountain Health quickly transition from having a sense of leaving money on the table to a concrete, mutually agreed-upon plan to engage and upgrade a specific set of donors. Perhaps even more importantly, they laid the groundwork to go forward with a new practice of collaboration.
“I think for me to have everybody in the same room and part of the solution was as valuable as the actual donor journey mapping process, because it created a baseline for us all to start from and to see that we are all on the same team,” Dalton said.
Cross-departmental collaboration gave everyone deeper knowledge of what each department did, expanding understanding and eliminating some existing tensions and misconceptions.
Tell the Story Together
Donor journey mapping is a starting point, one that allows fundraising and development teams to work together to understand their donors and create more opportunities to connect with them. As time goes on, you’ll learn more, receive donor feedback, and be able to continually refine and revise the touchpoints and goals for each type of donor.
In this process, an outside eye can be a valuable asset. It can be challenging to identify all the places where you’re delighting or disappointing donors, and a donor-focused agency can be an important partner in doing this work.
When you dig deep into your donor journey, identify opportunities to delight them, accurately assess the impact you can have, determine your own organizational capacity, and make a new plan with your whole team, the journey becomes more meaningful and valuable—not just for your donors, but also for you.
1. Quarterly Fundraising Report.” FEP 2024 Quarterly Benchmark Report. Accessed September 9, 2024. https://data. givingtuesday. org/fep-report/.
2. Jacobs, Bill. “The Exponential Importance of Second Gift Timing: Analytical OnesTM.” Analytical OnesTM | Data Your Donors Will Love, July 3, 2020. https://www.analyticalones. com/the-exponential-importance-of-secondgift-timing/.
About the Author:
Jessica Woodard, AVP, Client Strategy at Allegiance Group + Pursuant
Jessica Woodard brings over a decade of expertise in nonprofit fundraising to her role at Allegiance Group + Pursuant, where she is dedicated to the success of hospital foundations. As a strategic leader, she specializes in creating integrated direct-response fundraising plans that deliver measurable outcomes. Her strong communication skills, friendly demeanor, and exceptional organizational abilities allow her to collaborate effectively with clients to achieve their goals. Since joining the agency in 2012, Jessica has played an integral role in elevating the fundraising success of numerous healthcare organizations.
Kristin Priest, MA, CFRE, VP, Client Strategy at Allegiance Group + Pursuant
Kristin Priest, MA, CFRE, brings over two decades of consultancy and fundraising expertise to her role as VP of Client Strategy. She specializes in enhancing nonprofit development programs through major giving, capital campaigns, capacity building, and data analytics. Kristin is committed to strengthening the nonprofit community and serves on the Milton Murray Fund board, is a member of AFP’s Research Council, and a founding member of the Fundraising Effectiveness Project. With a master’s in Philanthropic Studies from the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, she holds the CFRE designation and has extensive experience as both a mid-level and major gift officer.
Kathy Dalton, Annual Giving Specialist at Intermountain Health
Kathy Dalton draws on more than 20 years of experience in marketing communications, social networking, and new business development in her role as Annual Giving Specialist at Intermountain Healthcare Foundation, one of the nation’s leading nonprofit healthcare systems. She is passionate about inspiring donors, volunteers, and partners to support the foundation’s mission of helping people live the healthiest lives possible. Kathy specializes in crafting compelling storytelling, curating impactful social media strategies, and developing high-impact campaigns that drive engagement and support the growth of the foundation’s brand across key channels.
Old and Trusted or a Cinderella Story? Selecting the Right Committee Members for Your Capital Campaign
By Joan M. Bindel, MBA, CFRE
Adapted from a presentation by Joan Bindel, MBA, CFRE, and Eric Heininger, MBA, CFRE, at the AHP Campaign Summit, March 2024.
Remember that March Madness bracket I used to pick the perfect committee for your capital campaign? Well, get ready for a slam dunk! It turns out, the same analogy can be used due to the meteoric rise in the popularity of the WNBA.
I have been a sports junkie for years, but the last few seasons have been extra special, thanks to Caitlin Clark, the Iowa Hawkeyes, and now the
Forward Thinking Article
Indiana Fever. My son went to high school with Caitlin, so it’s been awesome to watch her rise to stardom. I’ve also learned many lessons from women’s basketball and a 22-year-old phenom that can apply to our work in fundraising.
As it turns out, basketball can be a great analogy for putting together a successful capital campaign leadership team. Much of the success of a capital campaign hinges on the strength of its team–the campaign committee. The right individuals can inspire confidence, build momentum, and unlock significant donations leading to the completion of transformational healthcare projects.
Coaching Strategy
Before diving into the committee selection process, it is important to create an overall gameplan for the campaign. Spend time developing the campaign’s case for support, setting the fundraising goals, and creating a timeline. Prepare for your incoming team by identifying and researching potential donors, developing a solicitation plan, and creating a communications plan to share your success with your donors and fans as you reach campaign milestones.
When these basics are in place, it is time to make an intentional selection of the right mix of veteran and new volunteers who will make up a balanced leadership committee. Start by clearly defining the committee’s purpose and responsibilities before beginning your recruitment process.
Committee Recruitment
Will your committee be a bracket breaker, or will you make it to the big dance?
Campaigns can be made or broken on the volunteer leadership involved. It is important to have the right lineup to make it through the campaign successfully. Campaign leadership is
important for many reasons:
● Accountability and transparency: Committee stays informed and engaged with regular meetings and progress updates.
● Momentum: Committee meetings and closing of gift commitments inspires other members to make calls and feel the success.
● Natural cultivation (points): Committee becomes committed personally and financially to the project.
● Leverages staff resources: Committee expands the reach by making donor calls, sometimes doubling the number of requests staff alone could make.
● Reach and representation (rebounds): Committee members introduce new prospective donors to the project.
● Leadership pipeline (future board members): Committee members could be your next new board member.
● Synergy: Working together as a team will prove greater than the sum of our individual efforts.
● Donor acquisitions (assists): New donors are generally acquired through committee contacts.
● Redemption rate: Donors are most likely to fulfill their commitment to the campaign if asked by a friend.
Your Starting Lineup
A diverse committee that reflects the community you serve will bring a variety of perspectives and potential donors to your campaign. Consider including individuals from different backgrounds, ages, and professions to be part of your campaign committee. This matrix will help you brainstorm a committee that is well rounded.
Connector, Religious Leader, Physician, Elected Official, Patient/Alumni/ Close Constituent
Known Philanthropist
Major Donor, Impact Investor, Foundation Contact
Young Up-and-Coming Leader, Intergenerational Donor
Design, Media, News Contact, Marketing
Volunteer - Civically Engaged Corporate
Retiree, Alumni, Former Fundraiser, Former Board Member, Civically/Politically Active
Here is where a bracket comes in. Start placing names of potential committee members in the outside columns of your bracket. Do you have someone in mind from each of the areas of the matrix? Who will take a pass and fall off the bracket? Who will be benched because they are not the right fit at the right time? As you work your way to the center of the bracket, select your coaches–your co-chairs for your campaign.
Volunteer support and involvement are crucial to the success of the campaign. While we are paid to lead the effort, our volunteers play an invaluable role in making it a reality. Follow these tips to ensure a professional environment for your volunteers to become engaged in your campaign.
Ten Tips for Recruiting and Engaging Leaders
1. Identify potential volunteers who are
Corporate Leader, Lawyer, Financial Planner, Real Estate Expert, Accountant
successful, passionate, and excited about the cause.
2. All leaders should be major donors or be able to make a major gift.
3. Prepare a written job description outlining the expectations and responsibilities of the role.
4. Recruit your first-choice volunteer leaders early in the process.
5. Engage your committee very early in the process to foster a sense of ownership.
6. Define expectations including gift size and anticipated time commitment.
7. Provide committee members with support and training to help them succeed in their roles.
8. Create resources for committee members to share.
9. Create inspiring experiences for committee members.
10. Communicate often, effectively, and efficiently to keep everyone informed and engaged.
Selecting Your Team Captains
In my past experience, campaign co-chairs have been preferable to a single chair. Cochairs allow for greater overlap of constituents by age, gender, and geographic location. The co-chairs can also share the workload which eases the burden that any one person may feel leading such an important committee. Your campaign chairs can serve as the cornerstone of a successful campaign. They are the public face, the team all-stars, and the driving force behind your campaign success.
The campaign chairs should be individuals who can command respect, build relationships, and inspire confidence. They should be able to articulate the campaign’s vision clearly and passionately. When selecting your campaign leadership team, consider the following qualities that will be helpful in ensuring a successful campaign.
● Passion: A deep commitment to healthcare and your organization’s mission.
● Leadership: The experience and ability to inspire and motivate others.
● Fundraising Ability: A proven track record of successful fundraising and a generous donor.
● Community Influence: Strong connections within the community.
● Time Commitment: Availability to dedicate significant time to the campaign.
Two Campaign Teams–One Win, One Loss
Do you engage in postgame evaluation after a campaign? In the last 10 years, I have been involved in two capital campaigns that involved a campaign leadership committee. Team Purple successfully raised $12 million through a campaign characterized by strong precampaign planning, thoughtful committee selection, dedicated leadership, and active committee involvement. The veteran donors who served as campaign co-chairs took ownership and pride in all aspects of the campaign, while committee members, including their spouses, actively participated in fundraising efforts by hosting events, inviting new prospects to learn more about the campaign, and making their assigned calls between each committee meeting. Despite the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, Team Purple’s commitment and effective strategies led them to their own Cinderella story with a tremendously successful campaign.
On the heels of the $12 million successful campaign, it was time to undertake a smaller project. Despite a promising initial goal of $3 million, Team Blue’s campaign fell short due to several challenges. Pre-campaign efforts on the part of the Foundation team were rushed and lacked the enthusiasm of previous campaign. The committee selection was random, and the new-guard campaign chair was eager to begin but became less enthusiastic and committed to the project as time went on. The campaign leader made excuses that hindered progress, members were not held accountable, and the team’s energy was low. As a result, the campaign struggled to gain momentum after reaching the $500,000 mark, ultimately failing to meet its fundraising goals.
Lessons Learned
The start of the WNBA season for the Indiana Fever seemed rocky from the cheap seats in my living room. I wasn’t sure the team was going to be able to leverage the strength of each individual player to make a difference. But as the season went on and I watched and listened intently to Caitlin’s postgame comments, I had six takeaways about a team approach that can apply to our campaign committee and to my work as a leader.
A true team:
● Believes in each other and shows improvement and growth over time.
● Defines reality and embraces the unexpected.
● Creates a culture of value and appreciation of others.
● Shows great resilience even when there is a slow start or obstacles to overcome.
● Has great confidence in each other and the ability to complete the task.
● And a true team never confuses activity with accomplishment.
Just like a basketball team, our campaign committees are successful when we catch the vision and work together to accomplish the goal. While we often feel the need to have a detailed strategy before we can start, the greatest victories come from overcoming challenges and seizing opportunities. Sometimes, it’s the hustle plays, the unexpected shots, and the resilience that make the difference. So, let’s put on our jerseys, hit the court, and see what we can accomplish in fulfilling our mission by sharing opportunities with our donors and fans.
About the Author:
Joan M. Bindel, MBA, CFRE
Joan Bindel is the vice president of philanthropy for MercyOne Des Moines Foundation, where she has served for seven years in various leadership roles including major gifts and planned giving officer as well as the operations leader.
A Certified Fund Raising Executive (CFRE) since 2017, Joan brings over three decades of fundraising experience to her role. Her background includes serving healthcare, higher education, and religious organizations. Joan holds undergraduate degrees from AIB College of Business and Graceland University and a Master of Business Administration degree from Drake University.
Dedicated to community and professional involvement, Joan has served on various state-appointed and nonprofit boards and committees. She is a member of AHP, is a past board member of AFP Central Iowa, and has held leadership positions with MidIowa Planned Giving Council.
Joan and her husband, Todd, live in Ankeny, Iowa. They have two adult children. In her spare time, Joan enjoys traveling and creating scrapbooks to preserve her family memories.
Transforming Healthcare Fundraising: Elevate Your Philanthropy with Graham-Pelton
At Graham-Pelton, we don’t just advise—we partner with healthcare organizations to transform their fundraising efforts. Imagine a healthcare system where philanthropy fuels innovation, patient care, and research. With Graham-Pelton’s expertise, this vision becomes reality.
Our approach starts with understanding your needs. Using advanced donor insights and analytics, we pinpoint untapped giving potential. Personalized communication strategies ensure donors feel connected and engaged. And by training clinicians to champion philanthropy, we amplify the power of grateful patient programs through our Beyond Gratitude™ model.
With decades of experience, Graham-Pelton crafts solutions that lead to sustainable growth and impact. Through proven strategies and deep healthcare expertise, we empower hospitals and health systems to not only reach their fundraising goals but exceed them.
Our unique approach focuses on three core elements:
1. Data-Driven Donor Insight: We continually assess donor databases to uncover hidden potential, ensuring no opportunities are overlooked.
2. Personalized Communications: Engaging leadership annual fund and mid-level donors with personalized, impact-driven messaging to retain and elevate giving.
3. Clinician Engagement: Our team coaches healthcare professionals, empowering them to build stronger relationships with grateful patients, turning gratitude into meaningful, sustained giving.
Our solutions are designed for lasting impact, helping healthcare organizations build a culture of philanthropy that can thrive in an ever-evolving landscape. Whether you’re running a capital campaign or enhancing your grateful patient program, our trusted advisors are here to guide you every step of the way.
Discover how we can transform your healthcare philanthropy.
Learn more: www.grahampelton.com/healthcare.
A Framework for Healthcare Philanthropy Leadership Development: The Case of HHSF
By Gary Hubbell
Introduction
Author’s Warning: This article invites a mindset shift. We all know that development work is about far more than fundraising. The additional burden for healthcare philanthropy professionals is to help create the resource engine that enables their organizations to influence and improve community and regional levels of well-being. In a severely strained (and some say broken) healthcare delivery system, our work matters. Unless we can connect our donor support to the key determinants of health, we’re still dabbling. This is an instructive story about intentional leadership transformation in service of a bold
vision. This article outlines the development and implementation of a leadership framework designed to cultivate a resilient, adaptive healthcare philanthropy leadership team and foster a thriving organizational culture.
While written by me, the case study I’m describing reflects my co-created leadership development efforts with my brother and coconsultant, Ken Hubbell, and Pearl Veenema, longstanding chief executive officer (retired 2024) of Hamilton Health Sciences Foundation (HHSF) in Hamilton, Ontario, over a 14 year period (2010–2024). We have tremendous admiration for Pearl’s visionary leadership and commitment to this transformative journey.
Leadership Learning and Development-What We Set Out to Do and Why
As you know, there are many different ideas about leadership. In this Foundation context, we came to define leadership as securing the future or closing the gap between a vision of a different future and today’s reality. Our leadership learning and development process was a sustained commitment and discipline to focus on learning and unlearning, on discovery and discernment, both individually and collectively.
Warren Bennis, who has written and taught extensively on the subject, noted that “the process of becoming a leader is much the same as the process of becoming an integrated human being.” For Kevin Cashman (whose writing became a cornerstone of our curriculum), “leadership is authentic self-expression that creates value.” Uncovering our authentic selves and generating alignment among the
Foundation team around an integrated vision of a future of increased hope, possibility, service, innovation, and well-being was the central notion among the HHSF community of learners/ leaders.
We believe that the best leaders are those who humbly seek to know themselves at the deepest levels; those who seek to understand that healthcare philanthropy leadership is less about applying tools and techniques and more about cultivating and practicing curiosity, authenticity, courage, and alignment.
Within this framework we began a sustained inquiry and dialogue about leadership. From the outset we never asked the leadership team to forsake their current duties and priorities, nor to turn a blind eye to the operating plan and metrics. Yet, we did ask them to open themselves to a new space of exploration and personal mastery.
When beginning to put this framework together framing in 2010, we saw deep seated barriers to innovation and optimal Foundation performance that were well beyond the situational context. Yet HHSF continually sought to be a highperformance organization. Compounded by periods of languishing economy, the pervasive impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, and numerous tactical adjustments, we observed a performance plateau on overall health and poverty outcomes, which remained subjects of increasing concern across the region.
Therefore, to fully realize the hospital’s bold pillars of strategic direction, the Foundation itself would have to undergo its own continuous transformation.
We concluded that new learning would be
required if HHSF was to achieve its fullest potential and, more importantly, to do so in a way that built a deep, resilient culture of innovation and high performance. We began to imagine not only higher Foundation performance; we sought to contribute more significantly to the health, well-being, and resilience of the Hamilton Region. We (Gary and Ken Hubbell) were asked to partner with the HHSF leaders because of our extensive experience with transformative philanthropy, organizational behavior, and social impact. Working closely with Pearl Veenema, we co-constructed a customized HHSF leadership framework. The goals were to:
1. Create a leadership team that exemplified a strong fit with these leadership learning practices and a heightened commitment to building a culture of health and well-being at HHSF;
2. Model a collective learning process that focused team energies on refining the Foundation’s catalytic role in the development of resilience and sustainable
collaboration in the region; and
3. Solidify focus, improve agility, and unleash creative thinking across the organization to enhance Foundation performance and longterm adaptability.
Higher performance is not simply a matter of greater technical ability. Rather, it is a complex, adaptive challenge that requires from us an entirely different mindset and approach. In the words of Marshall Goldsmith, “what got you here won’t get you there!”
By pursuing big changes and a bold vision we expected to encounter personal and collective habits that we knew might hold us back. Getting beyond the resistance, the old habits, and patterns required a personal growth journey for each leadership team member and collective shifts about how people work together without slipping back into stultifying behavior.
Developing Healthcare Ph1ilanthropy Leaders for a Complex World: Understanding Adaptive Cycles
Realizing this drove the HHSF adaptive leadership learning process, especially during more recent years of multiple, sustained disruptions and crises. We encouraged the chief executive officer to adopt the following stance for navigating transitions:
1. Refine your strategic perspective;
2. Reinvest in leadership learning;
3. Prepare for an environment of surprise, delays, and sudden sprints; and
4. Focus on building a resilient organization led by authentic people who can make sense of their world and adapt quickly.
Whether conscious of it or not, HHSF—like all individuals, organizations, and communities— is navigating adaptive cycles. These cycles are shaped by the way people respond to transitions. Therefore, for the leadership development framework to be contextually grounded, HHSF leaders needed to recognize common characteristics of adaptive cycles so they could recognize patterns of community and organizational behavior. Knowing where we’re headed can help us apply the most appropriate tools and soften anxiety about change. It can also help identify patterns of organizational behavior over time.
Ken Hubbell illustrated these cycles in the following sketches.
For instance, during a stable phase of implementation (green), groups typically focus on efficiency, often by reverting to older habits and pushing harder to do more of what used to work. This works for a while, but it can mask the signals of change in the larger environment that might require the organization to change or adapt.
Eventually, external pressures collide with some internal limits to produce a period of conflict, disruption, or stalled progress (pink-orange) that pushes the organization to release some behavior and unlearn in order to frame some more effective response (gold-yellow).
As any organization moves into reorganization mode to make sense of the emerging options, there can be friction. One can discover new opportunities by investing in fresh thinking, redesigning practices, and reframing relationships and outmoded structures. This is a good phase for re-energizing a board and lifting up new ideas from new staff (especially young people) or important allies.
Developing consensus around new directions, models, or programs (light green) will require some compromises to push forward the ideas that could invigorate our future.
One key purpose of, and benefit of your commitment to, this type of leadership learning framework is in developing a fully adaptive organization capable of navigating the pulses of change, which is essential for long-term sustainability.
Everything’s Connected: A Leadership Development Theory of Impact
Parallel creation of the HHSF leadership learning framework, we articulated the Foundation’s theory of impact (aka, change or success) to better communicate how leadership and operational effectiveness can be fused to create: (a) more exciting and lasting partnerships; (b) increased numbers of committed donors and investors; and (c) increased public appreciation and engagement in the big, long-term regional vision.
Greater impact and better resilience, therefore, required the Foundation to articulate and embrace its theory of impact. In so doing, HHSF reaffirmed that leadership development was not some isolated “nice to have” but an essential success ingredient in the path to the desired visionary impact in the region.
The resulting HHSF theory of impact is presented here in pictures (below) and words (following):
HHSF Theory of Impact
● We attract the “right” people…
● And increase their leadership muscle…
● To optimize effective individual and team development…
● And create an inviting culture of innovation and high performance…
● That models the characteristics of an adaptive and resilient organization,
● Which leads to our behaving in ways that results in increased partners, donor interest and financial resources, and public engagement,
● Which, in turn, fosters the growth and expanded impact of HHS services,
● Which ultimately leads to and supports a thriving region with high levels of health, opportunity, caring, and well-being.
We acknowledge that grammarians will have a conniption! Our goal was not a marketing statement for publication. Rather, we were helping leaders embrace the narrative connection of typically disconnected concepts.
Growing Leadership Competence-A Focus on Being and Doing
We believe it takes personal mastery, courage, humility, practice, and a supportive, reciprocal relationship with our environment to make profound changes in our world. In the collective HHSF leadership journey, leaders were learning:
● How to be and become their greatest selves so they can make a useful and lasting contribution to the community;
● How to take full responsibility for dreams and everyday choices so they can create trust, accomplish big things, and live a life worth living;
● To recognize and channel the right action for every challenge so they unleash the greatest potential for good; and
● How to see and think with others so they can get more done that truly matters.
The central core of the leadership framework was built around the fluid interplay and integration of four elements: Awareness, Perspective, Insight, and Contribution. Each operates along a learning and development continuum, where aspects of each dimension are emphasized at varying times. We’re constantly bouncing back and forth between the individual elements and the whole. Throughout the leadership learning and development process, the leadership team was exploring how to strengthen their individual capacity in every area, building upon current strengths, and how to strengthen the collective team by integrating these leadership essentials into the work of implementing HHSF’s longterm vision for the region’s health and well-being.
We display the eight dimensions graphically as twin ends of four central continuums that function as the architecture for one integrated framework.
Dimensions of the HHSF Leadership Learning Framework & Curriculum
This keeps the big picture and harmony in leaders’ conscious view. It works best to have a simplified mental model of this work, which should be tested against your highest stated intention.
As chief executive officer, Pearl repeatedly reaffirmed the importance of intentionally returning to the core of their shared beliefs/ viewpoint much more often. We all know too well that it’s easy to get busy and lose connection to your positive core. As co-creators of this leadership framework, we’ve come to understand that this positive core doesn’t reveal itself unless we stop, reclaim it, and sit with it again.
When individuals get clearer about their life, work, and purpose, they feel alignment, synergy, and see where they can learn and where they can make their highest contribution. Leadership flows from that clarity, which helps you recognize that you are co-creating the systems within which you are working. You are co-creating the environment that you’ll inherit.
Our partners at HHSF believed they had some power to redesign these systems for good.
The Leadership Dimensions
Characteristics of the four leadership dimensions follow.
● Generativity focuses on discovery and linking personal and organizational purpose for lasting impact and legacy.
● Presence means an empathetic, open mindset, enhancing awareness of new possibilities and positive change.
● Heightened presence naturally manifests purposeful dialogue and generative action.
Perspective
● Awareness without perspective is high alert without direction. Perspective prepares us for wise action, integrating systems thinking and adaptive learning.
● Systems thinking offers a holistic view— understanding how interdependent elements interact and influence outcomes. HHSF’s vision (Hamilton 2030) acknowledges they can’t control everything, but they see possibilities and leverage points—and know they’re not acting alone.
● Adaptive learning fosters imagination and unlearning when needed, aligning strategy with long-term vision. They ask themselves:
o How will I hold myself to being what the vision requires?
o How does what I’m doing at this moment connect to the vision?
o How can I calibrate my work while I’m here?
o What is right action for this challenge?
Insight
● With perspective, we shift to insight— meaning-making through fresh thinking and integration into what becomes a new design.
Awareness
● Change begins with conscious recognition of the need to shift. Leadership here involves generativity and presence.
● Strategic thinking harnesses creativity to foster a culture of breakthrough ideas, driving innovation in programs and campaigns.
● Design thinking embraces diverse ideas, encouraging prototypes and evaluation to maximize value. We ask catalytic questions
that challenge assumptions, amplifying strengths for greater impact. We lift stories of high point moments and become insatiably curious about their root conditions, believing that if we can get clear about the conditions fueling our strengths, we can then amplify them for greater impact. This requires discipline to avoid the tendency to jump immediately to action with a “fix” mentality.
● The “so what?” question guides our innovations, ensuring alignment with our core mission and business model to improve health and well-being.
Contribution
● With clarity of purpose, we focus on making our best contributions. Shared efforts and values ensure actions reflect our highest intentions and generate lasting impact.
● Equitable, purposeful action aligns with our values—integrity, respect, fairness—allowing us to navigate complexity with trust in our “compass.” Despite having to nearly always navigate great complexity, uncertainty, and ambiguity in our macro-operating environment, this framework conditions us to trust our “compass” and relinquish our felt need for a detailed how-to checklist.
● Collaboration amplifies our contribution, fostering engagement and shared accountability. By breaking silos and cocreating common goals, we build trust and shared leadership for collective success. We embrace an “and” mindset and set aside our “either/or” defaults.
Connecting Leadership Development to Organizational Strategy
and to Regional WellBeing
In 2021 Foundation leaders formulated a small set of high-level strategic directions that are responsive to all the likely emerging scenarios for Hamilton (which we developed earlier) while, at the same time, seeding the longterm 2030 vision. These strategy sessions highlighted intentional leadership in action: uncovering leverage points in a complicated health ecosystem and framing a vision that marries community investment toward a bold goal that will address several of the health gaps that surfaced on the Hamilton Regional Health Patterns Dashboard.
We evolved from earlier annual leadership capacity progress assessment dials toward a trend line that illustrated HHSF leadership growth over time. This helped illuminate that leadership and impact are changing and responding to internal and external dynamics. The longer trend lines helped support deeper reflection about the pace of leadership musclebuilding (e.g., What seems to trigger greater capacity? What have we learned about gaining deeper capacity, trust, and health impact?).
Subsequent work spotlighted a feature of leadership integration frequently illustrated in this framework: leaders must synthesize learning, theory, vision, strategic investment, and bold action into a simpler action map.
To fuse essential components of the scenario analysis with the organizational strategy and the leadership learning agenda, we developed a summary strategy map. Adapted from Robert Kaplan’s work, Strategy Maps, this five-tiered action map expresses the multiple levels of learning, being, framing, and doing required inside HHSF to catalyze the vision over the next several years. It helped answer the “Why” questions about the Foundation’s key targets and embedded these in levels that cascade upward toward higher community impacts:
● Sustainability objectives built upon institutional leadership and culture;
● Enhanced internal technical and communication competencies;
● Initiatives, relational structures, and critical alliances to direct more donor impact;
● Braided high-level strategic objectives: catalytic story-making around a cohesive community outcome— “an integrated blanket of healthcare and well-being” and strategic fundraising tied to more transformative impact at greater scale for the next five years; and
● A clear vision with clear measures: a sustained and innovative foundation convening investments to produce the healthiest Canadian community.
The Map showcases the “Why” of HHSF’s Leadership Framework integrated into what the region may need HHSF to be and become:
● It clearly frames an aspirational and generative future (Generativity).
● It offers a greater chance for authentic (Presence) community (Collaboration) and (co-Design).
● It seeks to pull new breakthrough thinking (Strategic Thinking) insights into a fresh synthesis (Adaptive Learning).
● It seeks to nudge a regional system to address health disparities and surging crises (Purposeful Action and Systems).
Conclusion
Key to this learning framework is the intentional lifting and supporting of others in the application of their strengths. We helped reframe HHSF leaders’ thinking about their roles, shifting from conventional leaders (with all its longstanding attributes of positional authority, command, and control) to change agents or catalysts—where the focus is on creating and sustaining the conditions in which colleagues thrive. We came to see HHSF in many of the same ways Cooperrider and Godwin define a positive institution: “organizations and structured practices in culture or society that serve to elevate and develop our highest human strengths, combine and magnify those strengths, and refract our highest strengths outward in world benefiting ways leading, ultimately, to a world of full-spectrum flourishing.”
Anything worth doing requires determination and patience. And yet we know, everything is ever evolving and temporary. Today there is a new health system Chief Executive Officer, Foundation Chief Executive Officer, and Foundation board chair. Priorities shift and continuity is hard. While few current HHSF leaders may feel a visceral connection to the case we describe here, the adaptive challenges remain for developing healthcare philanthropy leaders who grow beyond their technical prowess to meet the complexities of this moment.
About the Author:
Gary Hubbell
Gary Hubbell helps leaders simplify complexity, unify teams, and drive transformative change. Gary Hubbell Consulting has been providing planning, leadership development, and organizational philanthropy strategy for clients in the US and Canada for 19 years.
https://www.garyhubbellconsulting.com
Beyond Gratitude™ is the only grateful patient fundraising model developed from individual coaching sessions with more than 2,500 doctors, nurses, and clinical professionals. grahampelton.com/ beyond