March 1, 2015 | Read Time: 3 minutes
Ditching the huge capital campaigns that many nonprofits now run is helping two Toronto hospitals increase donations every year and reduce a major cost that is increasingly hobbling many organizations: the time and money that charity leaders spend replacing fundraisers who flee because they are burned out.
Among the fundraisers staying put: Anette Larsson, campaign director at Toronto Western Hospital, who says the lack of a big campaign means she gets to spend more of her time working with donors, board members, doctors, and other leaders than she was able to do previously.
“This model of fundraising is unique,” she says. Spending all of her time with medical and volunteer leaders, Ms. Larsson adds, “has made me very happy.”
The hospital is one of two in Toronto that now runs smaller fundraising drives, such as one that seeks $20-million for diabetes research and another to raise $15-million for an eye-care center, but is not caught up in the now-prevalent situation in which hospitals, colleges, and museums compete for hundreds of millions—or billions—of dollars for comprehensive capital and program needs.
While many nonprofits now worry about burnout among donors who are being asked to make big gifts to multiple campaigns, Tennys Hanson, president, and Louise Aspin, chief development officer, at Toronto General & Western Hospital Foundation, decided years ago it was smarter to focus on keeping fundraisers satisfied—and hoped that doing so could channel more money to the hospitals’ mission through donations and savings achieved by reducing turnover.
The strategy has worked. New gifts and pledges have grown from $16-million annually in 2000, before the foundation started using the new approach, to more than $100-million last year. And fundraisers expect to bring in $145-million this year, in the fiscal period ending this month.
Ms. Hanson says that with donations increasing by at least 8 percent annually under the new fundraising approach, the hospital foundation is raising just as much as it would have from a huge comprehensive campaign to benefit its two hospitals.
Less Pressure and Paperwork
Perhaps just as important are the effects on personnel. Turnover has declined, and the group says it has been able to hire fundraisers of a higher caliber, because some people who previously worked in high-pressure jobs as chief development officers have found the hospital’s fundraising environment more attractive. Besides enjoying the lack of campaign-related pressure, some senior fundraisers appreciate how the foundation provides more junior colleagues to handle the paperwork.
“People hated all the administrative stuff and they love the autonomy we give them,” says Debbie Eyton, vice president of major gifts at the foundation.
Another innovation the hospitals introduced is also helping, Ms. Eyton says. To counter concerns that hospital fundraisers don’t get enough support from the trustees, the foundation has paired 10 senior development officials with foundation trustees who can act as a “board champion.” The board members, largely Canadian business leaders who include former patients at the hospitals, are selected for their ability to help raise money in areas of medicine they care about.
Toronto Western has also benefited by embedding fundraisers with the physicians and medical researchers they are raising money to help. As she seeks gifts of at least $100,000 to support the foundation’s Campaign to Cure Arthritis, Ms. Larsson works next door to the doctor who is leading efforts to find ways to prevent and treat the disease. Scattering fundraisers around the hospital rather than clustering them away from its work, Ms. Larsson says, lets her and her colleagues “create a true partnership” with the medical staff.
Such proximity is bringing in new gifts. Ten surgeons each gave $125,000 to the campaign over five years to support arthritis treatment research, which has in turn inspired other donors; one patient matched the doctors’ gifts with his own $1.25-million. “When people heard the doctors are putting their own gifts on the table, it really surprises people,” Ms. Larsson says. “We were able to quickly raise $35-million.”
