Philanthropy Membership
Now we are once again entering a new phase and bringing everything together in a philanthropy membership to the Kaiser Institute.
2012 Philanthropy Institute
Philanthropy creates new paths to different futures. And perhaps there has been no more important time to veer from probabilities and create preferable futures than now.
Keynote: The Abundant Future
There is no true scarcity--only disconnection of resources. We live in a sea of possible partners and allies. Yet we often engage and capture the imagination of only a tiny portion. Many of those who could bring resources, intelligence, and energy are right around us. But we must learn to engage these allies in new ways. In some health systems, philanthropy exceeds the amount of money left from operations. Novel partnerships with payers and consumer product companies provide both resources and expertise. And donors work with clinical and executive leaders to develop centers for innovation and new care models. The potential for abundance exists even in apparent scarcity.
Theater of Generosity
Every patient room, treatment area, hallway, and lobby is an opportunity for theater. Patients and families who enter these spaces create stories in their mind. They form narratives about how everything came to exist—the impressive buildings, technologies, and services.
Workshop: Design the Donor Experience
How many people walking out the doors of your hospital today have an emotional connection to your foundation?
High-Performance Foundations
In their narrowest role, foundations fundraise. In their broadest strategic role, foundations do far more-and in the process attract greater resources. Asking for gifts is not enough. It may actually be the smallest aspect of high-performance development. The greater challenge is to embed generosity into every patient experience, bring generosity to life throughout the culture, design experiences of giving that are transforming for donors, and intersect philanthropy and innovation at the highest level in the organization. When these things happen, the ability to attract resources increases profoundly. This broader strategic role requires a new understanding of development. And it requires the engagement of leaders across the entire hospital. To assist in this process this internal communications tool defines four essential and interconnected roles for the high-performance foundation of the future.
Generosity Heals
Visit the Generosity Toolbox and Innovation Circle.
Workshop: Design the Donor Experience
Leanne Kaiser Carlson
How many people walking out the doors of your hospital today have an emotional connection to your foundation?
How many donors have a remarkable experience—so high-impact it is the stuff of memory and conversation?
It is not enough to ask—or even to have a compelling cause. Because hospitals do such incredible work, it is easy to rely only on the issues to attract and engage givers. But the experience of giving must also be compelling.
Our challenge is to evoke engagement, capture imagination, and create inner alchemy. We must create environments where generosity permeates every relationship and interaction. We must infuse meaning, excitement, and story into the experience of giving.
Imagine
Think about all the people receiving extraordinary medical care in your hospital at this moment. How many are thinking about your foundation? How many are touched by generosity as part of their care experience?
IMAGINE . . .
A patient reading a story of generosity placed on their bed at night
A visitor looking at art on the wall that conveys generosity
A family member receiving some unexpected act of kindness associated with you
A nurse giving a patient a story card about the generosity that made their treatment possible
A caregiver receiving a gratitude journal holding expressions of appreciation from patients
A patient seeing a small card on the meal tray about gratitude sent from you
An executive creating strategy that embraces generosity
Physicians or nurses talking about how to generously support each other and colleagues
This is a true culture of generosity—a culture where generosity permeates everything. A foundation that designs culture discovers it needs to ask less, yet receives more.
There is a hard way to do development, and it is the most popular way. Isolate the foundation from everything that happens in the organization. Make sure there is little emotional connection to the foundation, and that people are asked to give before they receive or experience the energy of generosity. Send generic letters. Invite people to events. Put money in donor walls and places outside the flow of people's experience. Then thank givers in ways that are unremarkable.
There is also a new and more inspired way to do development. Embed generosity everywhere. Create story in each space. View a meal tray, patient room, or waiting area as opportunity for the theater of generosity. Communicate the impact of each gift individually. Create connections everywhere and view all things as part of development. Examine what generosity looks like in each core organizational strategy.
There is one thing you can shape as a foundation. That one thing is not the economy or people's total wealth. It is the experience of giving. Sixty percent of high net-worth individuals who stop giving to organizations do so for one reason—they lose emotional connection. (Bank of America Survey, 2009). Many more never start giving. Experience design is the solution to the biggest problem limiting philanthropic potential.
Are You Ready To Go Deeper?
OPTION 1: Imagine the Possibilities
One day can change the way your team thinks about generosity and how to create compelling experiences. Gather your leadership and board to begin the conversation. We come onsite and think with you about what is possible in your organization. Together we find opportunities within your existing processes and spaces. This day is the beginning of a roadmap. It's perfect for a retreat where you want to stimulate imagination and get a sense of how to move into the future.
OPTION 2: Invent the Possibilities
- If you want to go further, we will go further with you. We want to help a few organizations create what they are imagining. We will work with three to five organizations in this deeper way. This means:
- Coming in once every four months (or at a frequency that works for you) to assist in the high-level design of the concept and strategy
- Providing support in between these times for questions and decisions
- Providing templates for products to help infuse the energy of generosity throughout the culture (story sheets that caregivers can give to patients, meal tray cards with messaging about abundance and generosity, materials for more inspired communication to donors, generosity journals, etc.)
- Connecting you with a small circle of other innovators doing this level of experience design
- Assisting with national exposure through publication and conferences to the extent you want to be identified as a national innovator
Call us at 303.659.8815
Call us at 303.659.8815