The Critical Link to Increase Fundraising for Your Hospital

By Owen Thomas

If you work in major gift fundraising for a hospital or academic medical center, physician partners are very important to your fundraising success. Physician partners are a critical link in major gift fundraising to grateful patients and those with a close connection to their work, such as community physicians, founding chairs, resident alumni, and past faculty. Develop relationships with physician partners early on, long before you need them.  Provide value, and then ask them to go on major gift donor visits with you. Physicians are busy people no doubt. But when you show value, and that you can be trusted, your relationship becomes invaluable to accomplishing your mission, improving patient care, and helping physicians reach their own goals for improving and extending lives. Remember, donors come first. Through their relationship with the physician, you can provide opportunities for them to give back and connect them deeply with the missions of your institution.