← Advancing Health
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- [00:01]
A
Welcome to Advancing Health. The impact of philanthropy can be a difference maker for a hospital or health system's mission of great patient care. In this episode of a four part podcast series, two experts from a leading health system share how philanthropy empowers clinical excellence and improves patient outcomes.
- [00:24]
B
Hi everyone. Welcome to Advancing Health. I'm Sue Ellen Wagner, Vice President of Trustee Engagement and Strategy with the American Hospital Association. I'm happy to be joined by the leadership of Inova Health today. I'm happy to introduce Tony Artabel, Chief of Clinical Enterprise Operations at Inova Health System, and Sage Bolte, Chief Philanthropy Officer and President of the Inova Health Foundation. My first question, philanthropy can have a huge impact in helping a hospital or a health system achieve its mission and caring for our patients of our community while also supporting our operations. And can you talk about the role that philanthropy is playing right now in healthcare? And can you also talk about some of that broad, high level role that philanthropy is playing in Inova? Tony, let's start with you.
- [01:17]
C
Philanthropy is extremely important to healthcare and what it helps us do is provide services that we could not provide otherwise. And at Inova in particular, it works with our mission and it works with our priorities. We have three year priorities and annual priorities. And SAGE makes sure that the fundraising is actually meeting those priorities. It helps us develop our service lines and our service lines are specialty, for instance, neurosciences, pediatrics, and it really helps program development in those service lines lines so that we can offer extremely high acuity care and care that the community just wouldn't have without the help of philanthropy.
- [02:07]
B
Thanks, Tony. Sage.
- [02:10]
D
Yeah, I think philanthropy across the nation right now is critical. We know that we are facing headwinds that some of us have really never faced before. And the opportunity for philanthropy to come forward, our community to come forward and support their local health system or hospital is critical. Right now. Philanthropy is going to help keep the lights on for some health systems. Philanthropy in many systems are going to help extend care to areas where care might be minimized. Currently, the other aspect that philanthropy helps, at least at anova, it really helps accelerate the things that we want to do but may not be able to do today, tomorrow, or five years from now. But with the support of philanthropy allows us to accelerate on the work that we're committed to doing. The other aspect I think of philanthropy, at least at anova, is as Tony alluded, philanthropy follows strategy. And that's really critical because we don't want philanthropy starting and stopping. We don't want it to start something that then can't be sustained. We really want the investment of our community to be a legacy of the investment of the community. And that's really where I think currently and in the past, in the future, philanthropy has such an opportunity to make an impact on the health of our communities and really connect people's hearts to the health and health outcomes of our community.
- [03:43]
B
Thank you both. I think it's really important, that connection to community because that really connects to the mission. Next question. I'm sure you've heard a lot about this before. Why is cancer and heart getting all of the support and the dollars? How do you begin to approach answering that question when folks ask you that from the community?
- [04:03]
C
They're getting all of the dollars because many people use those services. Many families have people who've had heart issues or who've had cancer. And so people's hearts are already tied to those two service lines. The other thing about those service lines is they are sort of image makers for healthcare systems. People think if you can do heart transplants or you can do the most sophisticated oncology like car t that everything you do must be really good and you have a very high level of care in your organization. I also think a certain type of physician is attracted to those two specialties, and they are not shy about going out and working for philanthropic dollars. They will work with the foundation, they will show up at events, they will go to national meetings. And so they're very involved in that fundraising as well. It helps support their research. It helps support special programs like we have a wonderful wife with cancer program that was started by philanthropy and. And continues to get supported by it. Not 100%, but does get supported by it every year. And so they actually are two service lines that understand the importance of philanthropy to what they're able to do for their patients.
- [05:33]
B
Yeah, I think the physician point is a really critical one that most of us probably don't think of.
- [05:39]
D
We have to remember that more than 85% of philanthropic support comes from grateful patients. And that is an important statistic, because when you think about the gratitude of patients and where the highest volume of patients live, it often is in those two areas, in cancer and in heart. And beyond that, the relationships that they establish, because these are not short term to visit relationships. These are relationships that they build over months, over years, sometimes over decades. And so the gratitude that these patients feel, their families feel for the care in which they receive it shows up in the way that they provide philanthropic dollars. And to Tony's point, because many of these physicians, nurses, apps, social Workers like myself, I'm an oncology social worker, went into the field with the intention of those longer term relationships. I think they're, they, they understand that and they are capable and more willing to connect when they hear, thank you so much. Thank you for saving my mom's life. What can I do for you? They're not shy to say, would you be willing to talk to someone on one of my colleagues on the foundation team? Right. Would you tell your story? Would you be willing to support the research that saved your mom's life? Those kinds of conversations, they don't shy away from. The other piece of that, though, that I think it took me a while to understand is when cancer is supported, at least at anova, when cancer is supported, our musculoskeletal team is supported. Because what happens when a philanthropic dollar comes is it does offset the operational investment. So it frees up additional operational investments to be able to support something that might not have had philanthropic support or might not have had the operational dollars. And that's something that Tony and myself and of Cabinet are really working on, creating that culture and that mindset of we all win when a philanthropic gift comes in. We all win when a philanthropic gift comes into any service line because it does support something that otherwise would have either had operational dollar support or wouldn't have happened and would have waited for, you know, months to years. So we, we all win.
- [08:05]
B
Yeah. Very important points. Thanks so much. And that leads to my next question. You know, when people think of philanthropy and they tend to focus on those large donors from the community, but there's really so much more than that. Can you both talk a little bit about the successes that you've had when creating philanthropic initiatives and then the balanced donor audience. We talked a little bit about that. You both did, with the physicians and then the community members who have that heart and cancer connection. But can you elaborate a little bit more on that?
- [08:41]
D
You know, again, I think what's really important in order to be successful in fundraising for our health system is that you have clear focus on your mission and you have clear alignment with the strategic priorities of the organization. That is critical. And when you do that, and when everyone in leadership is able to articulate what your mission is, what your strategic priorities are, and where the philanthropic alignment is with those strategic priorities, you're able to tell a real, really powerful story to the community. And that story in many, what we call segments in philanthropy is critical. So, yes, a lot of healthcare right now is winning with the larger donors who are coming and Giving substantial, what we would call transformational gifts. Right? Multi million dollar gifts. And those are truly transformational and life giving to an organization. And there's only so many of those. So to be successful in philanthropy, you really have to look at a wider scope of donor opportunities. So those we call those mid level giving donors, those annual donors, the people that are willing to give you a hundred dollars a month or a hundred dollars a year, those opportunities to keep them connected, that $100 is so valuable to them and they're giving it to you. And our opportunity as an organization is to ensure that they feel that hundred dollars matters.
- [10:15]
C
So what I would say from an operations perspective, I've learned over the years how important it is to take every gift seriously. I would also say we need to role model giving to our own organizations. If we believe in the work we're doing, executives, then we need to step up and donate ourselves. I also know, I tell Sage this. I had the experience of one family when I was in charge of women's and children's services, sent me a check out of the clear blue sky because their baby had been in nicu, had never really been involved with Inova. It was maybe a $10,000 check. And I called them to thank them and asked if they would like to be recognized in some way. And they're like, no, no, we don't want to get involved. We just want to give you money. And every year that increased for the six or seven years I was in that job, the check kept getting more every year. And I've learned it's important to let people give to where their hearts are. And if you've been a patient of ours, maybe it was the NICU or maybe it was the pediatric floor, or maybe it was the cardiac icu. Whatever you give is meaningful, and folks need to know that their giving makes a difference. And when you believe that and your heart's in it already, then you're willing to give the larger and larger gifts that you can afford to give and know that it's appreciated.
- [11:55]
B
Thank you both. A lot of really great, important points. I really like the fact that no matter of the dollar amount of the gift that you need to make everyone feel important that they're contributing to their local hospital. So I think that's a really important takeaway. And that leads to my last question. Do you, you both want to share any final thoughts with our members on the philanthropy strategy that they should be looking at today?
- [12:22]
C
Hire a Sage Bolte.
- [12:25]
D
And then.
- [12:26]
C
No, actually, your leader is very important. It helps if you're a clinical leader in healthcare for fundraising. Because Sage understands the organization and what we do here in a way that a non clinical leader may not understand. Not that they're not. There are good non clinical leaders in philanthropy, but I think it is even better for the team to have a clinical leader there. And there needs to be total integration between philanthropy, strategy and operations. I think that's the secret.
- [13:05]
D
Where health systems have an opportunity is just to reinforce what Tony said. Your chief philanthropy officer should be at the table with the executives. It should report to the CEO. And I'm fairly biased on that because I've seen the success that can be had when your CEO is highly integrated into the philanthropic strategy and opportunities. When you see your CEO giving, others give, creating a culture of philanthropy, not just externally, where people around the health system have the opportunity to give, but those inside the health system, those who are caring for patients. When they give, they also are more connected to how the gifts have impact. They're more connected to the work of philanthropy, and they're more willing to tell their own story of gratitude of where they've had impact. So giving, as Tony said, at the highest level, down to our frontline staff, and again, that could be $5 a year. But knowing that they're giving to the organization, that culture of philanthropy, of both giving but also connecting people to the opportunity to give, is really, really important.
- [14:18]
B
Tony and Sage, thank you so much for joining me on this podcast today to discuss the impacts that philanthropy has had on your community and and your employees. We really can't wait to hear what's next for INOVA and appreciate all that you're doing for your community.
- [14:36]
A
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