Demand for chief philanthropy officers in healthcare is as high as it’s ever been, thanks to a wave of retirements and growing recognition of philanthropy’s critical importance to hospitals’ long-term strategic growth plans. But the role itself is changing.
“A consultant told me recently that ‘chief philanthropy officer’ was the number-one search term at the C-suite level for hospitals, but the type of person they’re looking for is different than in the past,” said Jessica McLain, MHA, CFRE.
McLain, who became vice president and chief philanthropy officer at MedStar Health in Columbia, Maryland in December, previously spent several years with the Cleveland Clinic. She is also an executive leadership program faculty member with the AHP Madison Institute in Madison, Wisconsin.
Changing donor expectations are helping to drive the change. “Donors are now viewing their philanthropy as an investment. They’re not giving you a gift just to pat you on the back or to compliment you on the care they’ve received,” McLain said.
Chief philanthropy officers must therefore be prepared to present these donors with detailed plans for how their gifts will be put to use while also managing donor expectations and relationships. The competing demands have led some healthcare fundraisers to express frustration at the sense that not enough hospital C-suite or board members fully understand the work they do.
“Philanthropy can seem mysterious and like it’s all a little bit of magic and glitz and glamor, when it actually funds very core things within the hospital,” notes Erin Lanahan, founder and president of Twin Point Insights, a healthcare consultancy in Los Angeles. It’s why both she and McLain agree on the importance of chief philanthropy officers being seen as full members of a healthcare organization’s executive team and having a seat at the table when major decisions are being made. This, however, puts the onus on chief philanthropy officers to view themselves as full strategic partners with the other team members.
“It’s a different set of skills and acumen than if you were just planning a gala or party around a specific program,” McLain said. “Being a true partner means understanding the business of healthcare and the things that keep the other executives up at night. It also means understanding that if I am one of my CEO’s executives, then I need to be prepared to step in as a pinch hitter for whatever other role I’m needed in and to represent my CEO and organization appropriately.”
It also means showing how philanthropy can be part of the solution to other challenges faced within the organization. Thus, when a survey showed nurses weren’t feeling appropriately recognized for the work they did, McLain proposed a nurse recognition program whereby patients were invited to make gifts in honor of any associate within the healthcare system who had been particularly kind or helpful to them. Likewise, when the hospital where she was working was faced with a shortage of surgical technologists, McLain proposed the creation of a donor-funded scholarship program to enable interested associates to receive the necessary training. “It’s furthering the culture of philanthropy, which is my job, but it’s also listening to other people’s problems and concerns and showing how philanthropy can be part of the solution,” McLain said.
Doing so also means following major gift announcements by showing physicians and nurses how the funds are being directed in ways that directly benefit the hospital’s programs and patients. The lines of communication thus opened can pay added dividends when it comes time to prepare end-of-year progress reports for the executive team and for the donor who made that gift. It’s all part of good stewardship, notes Lanahan, who currently also serves as interim managing director for the Advisory Board’s Philanthropy Leadership Council in Washington, D.C.
“These gifts aren’t just coming in over the transom,” Lanahan said. “They’re the result of significant work by those in the development office. And at a time when hospital margins are seeing unprecedented pressure, chief philanthropy officers must ensure that stakeholders understand how those dollars are being used to fund core priorities in the hospital.”
