New Benchmarking Data from AHP

New Benchmarking Data from AHP

By Tom Wilson Major Gifts Guru

The AHP Performance Benchmarking Service is really starting to take off.

In the recent Advancing Philanthropy: Ideas & Strategies from the Association of Fundraising Professionals, a short article about AHP noted yearly benchmarking results for 2007 from 46 participating hospitals in the United States and Canada.

• "High-performing, philanthropic fundraisers in charge of major gifts and planned giving programs were often the most effective and efficient fundraisers."
• "Major gifts from individual contributors . . . averaged $55,000 per gift."
• "The highest performing fundraising organizations put stronger, longer-term emphasis on cultivating major gifts, investing on average three times more than other surveyed organization but earning five times more in high-dollar gifts."
• "Developing major gifts and planned giving is the type of fundraising that calls upon the skills of the most seasoned professionals, said AHP Board Chair Lisa Hillman, senior vice president and chief development officer for the Anne Arundel Health System, Annapolis, Maryland."

Remember this was 2007 data so things are different right now. This information is critically important to get to your CEO, President, or Executive Director. If you want more funds raised, invest in highly experienced major gift officers.

If you're in healthcare, get your organization to join the AHP benchmarking group (started in 2003). Sure the first year is expensive ($4,000 for members with each year afterward $1,000). But, this data will be enriched with your participation and the group data will be critically important to educating your CEO and CFO on the values and importance of philanthropy. Please note there are 74 participants representing 94 organizations participating in the AHP benchmarking group.

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