Best Practices in Grateful Patient Fundraising (part of the hospital fundraising series)
By Tom Wilson Major Gifts Guru
Tim Randall from The Advisory Board Company (Washington, D.C.), spoke at AHP Midwest (Association of Healthcare Professionals) in Bloomington, Minnesota. The Advisory Board serves 2,700 hospitals (75% of hospitals). They started working on philanthropy about 5 years ago and work with 700 hospitals helping them use philanthropy to secure strategic capital.
This article is lengthy and covers a summary of Mr. Randall’s presentation.
They recently held a national meeting for hospital CEOs sharing 5 imperatives for philanthropy. They told CEOs it was time to “double down” on investing in grateful patient giving programs and . CEOs need to take hospital fundraising much more seriously.
Mr. Randall noted that a 4-1/2 hour research presentation was boiled down to 1 hour presentation that he gave to us along with a 110 page report.
He noted that wealth screening of 60% of patients at their surveyed hospitals demonstrated a $5 million and above net worth (1.7% of patients over 40). {As an editorial aside – beware of wealth screening and false lows. One donor we screened was rated at $25,000 and later made a $15 million gift to one of our clients.}
As you focus on patients with potential to make major gifts, you need to reassure everyone that of course everyone gets great care, but screening helps to determine who could receive enhanced attention by nonmedical staff to stimulate giving. These gifts will help make everyone’s care better.
The study noted that physician time in the hospital averaged 17% per week (2001). {T – I know this percentage is lower now because of hospitalist movement in healthcare.} Nurses have 6 minutes per patient per hour.
Of 2.4 million patient quality surveys, the top 5 issues that people cared about were:
- 1% pain relief
- 1% physician listening
- 4% nurse courtesy
- 7% response to concerns, complaints
- 42% attention to personal needs – the leading issues hospitals should address; opportunities for fundraisers to reach out to potential major gift donors
The response rate to grateful patient mailings was:
- 30-59 days of discharge – 1.28%
- 120 or more days of discharge – 0.88%
So, move quickly once your patients leave the hospital.
HIPAA issues are focused on insurance fraud, not on fundraising. Be careful, but also watch the competitors in your marketplace. How aggressive are they in contacting grateful patients? You need to keep up with what the other medical centers in your region are doing. As major gift officers, we can have access to demographic information – name, address, dates of health care. And, no additional information can be accessed unless patient signs HIPAA waiver. You need to offer patients an opt out of receiving fundraising information
Only 9% of hospitals are getting immediate notification of a hospital admission of unknown individuals with great gift capacity. Only 28% track known major gift prospects. If handled correctly, 2/3 of individuals receiving complimentary services join a giving society. 88% of hospitals using patient wealth screening are satisfied with the process. The ideal is daily, wealth screening based on patients in-hospital at midnight.
More amenities than care coordination (1 level of care, 2 levels of attention):
- In-room courtesy visit 92%
- Gift items 68%
- Priority access to private rooms 62%
- Foundation on-call during business hours 56%
- Expedited appointments 45%
- Foundation on-call 24 hours 38%
- Staff escorts 37%
- Personal notes 36%
Be very careful with internal communications of VIP attention. Don’t imply two levels of care, everyone gets the same excellent care. Some high-touch attention is offered to major donors who then fund better services for the entire community.
In order for major gift officers to be efficient, a patient healthcare advocate should be hired to visit wealth-screened high level prospect patients. One person might be able to visit 8 patients a day to provide extra time and attention. People appreciate the extra information so they can understand what is going on. The patient healthcare advocate can determine when a major gift officer should be introduced to the patient and/or the family. The advocate should have some healthcare training so they can explain procedures. Hiring a person is ideal but you might be able to involve retired nurses. But, be systematic and consistent in your contacts.
Once you start daily wealth screenings of patients, the problem is too many prospective donors, too many grateful patients capable of making significant gifts. So, you still need to sort by wealth capacity to get to manageable numbers.
Enlisting board members to connect with grateful patients can be very effective. Even if the board volunteer isn’t willing to solicit a gift, they can be very effective at door opening for the major gift officer.
Direct mail is a poor filter for grateful patient giving. However, sending an affinity questionnaire to highly rated prospects is more effective (they’re not ready for a major ask anyway). You can get a 10% response versus a 1% to 2% response for a direct mail solicitation. Sample questions could include:
- Are you willing to attend an educational session at our hospital?
- How was your experience?
- Did our hospital meet its mission expectations of healthcare service?
Physicians are very effective in helping with grateful patients, but many barriers prevent effective lead generation (including the 2004 AMA ethics resolution).
Physician qualities you should look for in enlisting their help with philanthropy:
- Alignment with the hospital
- Understanding of hospital’s financial constraints
- Appreciation of philanthropy on hospital and patients
- Vested interest in philanthropic project
Social network referrals and daily wealth screenings are far more effective than expecting physicians to be lead generators.
Physicians can be more important and effective in downstream support of a major gift request. Let them be the stars of your donor cultivation process.
While Giving U.S.A. notes giving to health is 7% of all giving, for million dollar gifts 12% go to healthcare.
Permanent Link: Best Practices in Grateful Patient Fundraising (part of the hospital fundraising series)
http://majorgiftsguru.com/2009/05/best-practices-in-grateful-patient.html
