June 26, 2003 | Read Time: 2 minutes
The Sharp HealthCare Foundation, in San Diego, has added a new weapon to its capital-campaign arsenal.
The fund-raising arm of the city’s largest health care system has developed a multimedia CD-ROM as part of its $50-million campaign to raise money for new building projects, computer technology, and endowment.
The CD-ROM opens with a photograph and audio from the 1953 groundbreaking ceremony for Sharp Memorial Hospital. Interactive floor plans detail three new building projects and show how donors could be recognized for their donations. For example, a $1-million gift would allow a donor to name an intensive-care unit on the second floor of the new hospital, while a $25,000 contribution would allow a donor to name one of the floor’s 24 intensive-care rooms.
Donors can use the giving calculator on the CD-ROM to assess the tax advantages of making a gift, based on the size and type of gift that they are considering. The CD-ROM also features testimonials from patients, a campaign brochure, and pledge forms that can be downloaded.
In addition to sending the CD-ROM to prospective donors, the foundation plans to use it to train its own campaign volunteers and to make presentations during campaign events.
Bill Littlejohn, the foundation’s chief executive officer, says the CD-ROM is not designed to replace in-person solicitations, but to serve as an additional source of information. Health care is a confusing and complex subject, he says, and fund raisers cannot begin to have meaningful conversations with donors about making a gift until their basic questions are answered.
Mr. Littlejohn says the foundation can provide more information at a lower cost in the CD-ROM format than it can in either its campaign video or its four-color brochure, and donors can easily find the information that interests them.
“With a CD it’s almost unlimited,” he says. “Because there’s so much capacity, you can really make a catalog of information. People can then use it in different ways, rather than going from start to finish like in a video or going from Page 1 to Page 20 in the brochure.”
For more information: Contact Gustavo Friederichsen, vice president for communications and public relations, Sharp HealthCare, (858) 499-4066.
