There are over 200 NHS Charities across the UK and hospital fundraising is often focused on community fundraising and direct marketing. Through our recent work with a University Hospital Trust and NHS Charity, we have identified five essential criteria for developing a successful major gift fundraising programme that harnesses the power of leadership, planning, and philanthropy to benefit healthcare services and the communities they serve.
1. Leadership and Culture
Major gift fundraising begins and ends with leadership. People give to people, and they buy into the vision provided by hospital leadership. The leadership team of the trust and charity need to be able to dedicate some of their time to major gift fundraising. Training and coaching should be available to help leaders understand how to develop a culture of philanthropy and how to build relationships which lead to major gifts. In addition to leadership building a culture of fundraising amongst senior clinicians is key to success. They often have relationships with grateful patients that can lead to major gifts if it is appropriate and if they are supported to secure them. Building a trusting relationship with clinicians should be a high priority for the fundraising team.
2. Plans and Activities
The plans and activities undertaken by the charity need to align with the overall hospital strategy. This alignment will ensure that the third criterion – Purpose and Projects – is compelling, focussed on priority areas and rooted in real need.
3. Purpose and Projects
Too often charities can be seen as a source of funding for projects which have not secured funding from other sources. This may mean that they are not strategically important, and it can also lead to ‘gifts that eat’ – gifts that are directed to projects which end up requiring further funding and were never a priority.
It is vital that hospital leadership set out the priorities for fundraising and support the fundraising team to stay focussed on those priorities through plans and activities.
4. Prospects
Prospect is a term fundraisers use for individuals, trusts and foundations and corporations who may give major gifts. Hospital fundraising is often focused on community fundraising and direct marketing. The data collected for these purposes could form the foundation of a database of prospective major donors but it has often not been used in that way. It’s more efficient to build a prospect database by searching for those capable of giving the biggest gifts, or who give to projects that align with yours and many of these won’t emerge through community fundraising or direct marketing. Instead you’ll need to invest in building your prospect pipeline and database for major gift fundraising through roles such as a prospect researcher and database manager.
5. Resources
Major gift fundraising is a person-to-person relationship-building activity which requires skilled fundraisers and dedicated support functions. It requires good data, capacity in prospect research (as set out above) and resources for stewardship – dedicated staffing to look after donor relationships. You might also consider investing in trusts and foundation and legacy giving roles alongside major gift fundraising. Investing in recruiting, training and retaining staff should be a priority in a competitive recruitment landscape.
Halpin is the home of experts in Higher Education and works with organisations across sectors including education, healthcare and charity. If you or your organisation is in need of expert external support don’t hesitate to get in touch. We undertake assessments of fundraising to help organisations develop a practical, realistic and suitably ambitious fundraising programmes. You can read more about our work with fundraising clients across sectors here.