Health Care Fundraising Ideas

When most people think of fundraising ideas, they think of special events, but fundraising goes beyond that. Special events are a way to draw people into your health care organization; a stewardship plan is a way to cultivate a relationship and turn one-time donors into continuous donors.

Fundraising with Purpose

• The best fundraising ideas for health care are ideas that focus on raising money, raising awareness and cultivating new donors and relationships for the health care organization. Most special events are a way to obviously make money, but also to draw people into an organization. Once you have gotten a potential donor to attend an event, the key is to cultivate the relationship and turn it into a rounded approach to raising money while keeping the donor invested in your organization.

Special Event Ideas

• Health care organizations such as foundations and nonprofit hospitals can have a lot of success with several types of special events. Some fundraising ideas that many health care organizations find success with are galas, wine tastings or formal dinners---all of which can include a live and silent auction. The reason these higher-end events work is because they typically draw in the type of donors the nonprofit hospital or organization needs to raise the most funds.

A Stewardship Plan

• A stewardship plan is a fundraising idea that focuses around a plan to make one-time donors feel as though you value their contribution and that they know what their contribution is going toward, with the goal of keeping them giving and involved in your organization.

  Once they have attended your event, donors need to be put into a stewardship plan. This includes thanking them, adding them to your mailing list, keeping them updated on your organization year around through newsletters, holiday cards and little gifts such as a calendar. A phone call from your director or a handwritten note from the patients you serve is also a great way to connect them to your mission. Once you have cultivated a relationship, they should have more than just a passing interest in your organization.

  All individual donors, large and small, need to be a part of your stewardship plan. Your fundraising efforts will only be as good as your stewardship plan because the bottom line is that individual donors want to be a part of something.

Fundraising Beyond Special Events

• Once you have a stewardship plan in place and a relationship is formed, begin asking your donors for a little more. Try a letter campaign to solicit money from them, make sure to invite them to other events and encourage them to get their friends involved. Encourage them to sit on committees for your organization, solicit funds for you on their behalf through an individual giving campaign, ask them to get on a planned giving schedule and find out if they will ask the companies that they work for to sponsor your events and programs. You never know who a potential donor may be, who they may know or what they may be able to help you with in the future.