Episode 222: The Data Driven Rationale for Physicians as ACTIVE Referral Agents, Faculty, Boards
Welcome to another edition of Around with Randall, your weekly podcast for making your nonprofit more effective for your community. And here is your host, the CEO and founder of Hallett Philanthropy, Randall Hallett.
It's another great day here on this edition of around With Randall had an interesting situation pop up about a month ago or so, where a potential client asked for some incredibly detailed data around grateful patients and referral agents. And really, the reason rationale for why we need and want a partnership with physicians. You may not be in the health care arena as you listen to this.
Just replace when the data may be a little bit different, will be physician with board member or with faculty member, or with executive or whomever. But the content of today is about why it's so important, in particular with physicians, to have them as referral agents, partners in the process of identifying prospects, potential donors. As we look at our pipeline development, when we talk about referral agents, there are two episodes.
You can go back and find some more generalized information. The first is episode about the importance of it overall and that's going to cover a lot more data and a lot more what I'll call general connection to board members, referrals, how those things happen. And in episode of around with Randall, we get into what you should do to treat your partners well, to really elevate their conversations to higher levels based on trust.
How do you build that trust? Today, we want to get into the physician conversation in health care. And again, you can replace this with other entities or other people that might be referral agents, but in particular for health care. And I think this applies for higher ed social service and other things. I'm just becoming more blunt about how I feel about the economic climate of the United States.
Overall, I think it's decent. I've been surprised how resilient it is over the last or years, but over the next decade, we're going to have to have hard conversations around what we do from governmental spending, and that's going to have effects on philanthropy. It's going to have effects on people, as we have a large stat, an annual deficit, neither one of which is.
Able to survive the course of time. We're going to have to make adjustments in particularly with health care. What we know is, is that and I think higher ed is quickly moving into this, but it's probably better positioned from a philanthropic perspective into where we're going to have decreases in revenue streams. Take into account two other factors. All nonprofit sectors have to worry about these two, that philanthropy has remained somewhat stagnant at about % of GDP.
And over the last year or two, there's an argument that it's gone down a little bit and that the model of which we operate in terms of prospect management and realization of dollars has changed dramatically, at least in my years. We used to operate under the principle of , , % of our dollars from % of people.
Now, it's probably closer to % of the people make up % of the dollars. This is all to say that if you're not incredibly dialed in to pipeline, if you're not incredibly dialed in to figuring out how you're going to identify the next generation of donors and that generation, maybe a full to years, maybe three years, depending on the cycles in which you go through.
Donors and work with donors. We're going to run into problems because you're going to run out of people. The other number that's really significant, my dear friend Nathan Chappelle, share this with me. Last week. Less than % of the households in the United States now are making any one charitable gift to any nonprofit, with less people giving more financial strain, inflation is hitting us.
We have a consistent level of of philanthropy at about % of GDP, which means pipeline developments are critically important. And then you add the health care numbers. We know that according to the advisory board, that about % of the largest gifts in health care come from grateful patients and families. On top of that, that when you look at some other studies, % of all major gifts in health care come from grateful patient and families at a place like Sharp Health Care, led by the unbelievable leader and an industry icon, Bill Littlejohn, they're moving towards almost % of all of their donations are coming from grateful patients and families.
Why is the physician in particular so important? Well, if you're not engaging them, you're leaving money on the table. And today's tactical, what we want to figure out is why they're important, how we address their concerns. But most importantly, throughout justifying by numbers why this is so critical. And the numbers are staggering. And I want to thank someday I'll be able to announce who that is.
There's potential client for forcing me into some depth of of data that I had never been before to justify this relationship. So let's start with the why. Why are physicians so important? Well, it's about trust. What we know is patients have immense trust most of the time for their physicians, as well as most of their caregivers. When we think about a health care episode and I change my career based on the health care needs of my son, that I found it incredibly hard to thank the caregivers who were a part of his health care journey.
To this day, it's still a struggle. Led me to believe that there's got to be a better way of doing this. What we know is, is that when health care happens, the difference between ordinary and extraordinary is an important marker, is an important differentiation. Most clinicians view their particular work every day as ordinary. It doesn't mean it's not impactful.
What it means is, is that they're used to it. They do it really well. For those of us who walk through a health care experience, it's an extraordinary moment. It's life changing. Might apply that to someone who's getting food at the food pantry, or getting home a rooms or some type of shelter in a homeless nonprofit. Or you might look at it from a faculty and student perspective.
A student thinks this is the greatest thing that's ever happened to them. What we know is, is that this trust is critically important. Nurses spend more time with patients, and doctors do. But we also know that doctors are the tip of the spear. Physicians are the ones of the people they remember. They are the ones who are in charge of the care.
According to an AHP report, physician referred prospects, meaning there's active engagement by the physician of identifying and introducing and or in this process, their gifts, when you have them, originate with that position, or at least physicians. An active part of it are to times larger than waiting for self-identified individuals to identify their gratitude. When we have physicians involved and they're making the identification and or introduction into the conversation, we don't want them asking.
We'll get into that in a second. What we know is that the gifts are higher because it's no different than a board referral. Why is it we don't want to just cold call people? Let's take the physician out of it. Why? We want our board members to introduce us to people, because we know that the gifts are going to be larger because they're creating in that cone of trust room for us to join that trust, and that moves the needle.
So the reason why this is important is, is that the trust that naturally comes from most health care episodes, that, particularly with the physician as the tip of the spear. All of that is to say, is that increases the trust that we have pretty quickly with our particular prospects.
What are physicians concerns? Well, it's probably the concern of board members and other of of other key either volunteers or employees. Number one is they are concerned that we are going to want them to ask their patients or their friends or whomever your referral agent is. In this case, we're talking about physicians in particular. Do you want them to ask their patients for money?
I teach thousands of physicians this concept of gratitude, and how it's connected to the care that's provided in the health benefits and other things that you can get information about. But what I always say is two things. Number one, we don't want physicians to ask, hey, because the AMA says it's a bad idea, the American Medical Association's actually recommended not to have physicians ask their patients for money.
Probably a good thing to follow. Number two is they're no good at it. They're going to screw it up. It's kind of the same reason I tell board members, I really don't want you to ask, because you're going to ask for $, and we want to ask for million. And we know that we have to build a relationship to do that.
It's not transactional. Physicians are concerned % of the time about asking for money. They also don't want to worry about the fact that someone might get different care. Everybody receives the same kind of attention and care based on the triaging and the needs of the health care. In our episode, they also know that they want to make sure that they don't have to identify wealth because, well, it's not relevant to them in the health care and it shouldn't be.
They take care of patients. If we can eliminate asking if we can identify, eliminate treating differently, if we can eliminate the idea of just, well, this is just about the wealthy, we really focus on gratitude, then what we get is things we do want for things that I talk about most often with physicians and other caregivers, I'll say this boards and anybody else can they recognize moments of gratitude?
Can they engage and respond differently? Can they translate that or transition it to a referral agent foundation, development office? And finally, can they explain and advocate for what they need? If they call that REIT right? Can they recognize moments of gratitude? Can they respond and not just dismiss it? Don't worry about it. Can they engage and say thank you?
You're welcome. Can they transition it? Create a referral to back to the Foundation office. I've sold my team that works with patients and families just like you. And finally, can they explain and advocate what do they need? How do we could tell that story? A lot of details in all of this, probably to % of my work is in grateful, patient.
The chart that I build to do this is, you know, or steps. These are the high points. But the real issue we've talked about why the trust, what their concerns are, how we get through them. But it's about why why do we have to do this. What we've always said is, is that great referrals get us into major gifts more quickly.
I've never been challenged on that until recently. And then I had to deck, and it's changed the way that I talk about referrals. Particularly grateful patients and physicians. Let me share some of this data with you. You're looking to figure out how to elevate grateful patient. Work with your executive team, with your board, with physicians themselves, when they need justification as to why this happening.
This part's for you. Organizations that structure physician engagement as a part of Grateful Patient Initiative fundraising. I see % larger gifts than those without the Journal of Health Care Management.
How about the Journal of Philanthropy and Health Care that programs that engage with their particular physicians within and patients patients through the physician within days, have immense stronger emotional connection and larger gifts.
That when we have active engagement with physicians, when the referral agent is actively engaged in that introduction process, you are more likely to secure % more major gifts. And that's from the Association of of Advancement in Health Care Philanthropy. Physician referred donors are % more likely to be retained over time.
% of physicians inside of this model of the kind of the engagement process feel more connected to the overall institution. Whoa. We just went away from philanthropy and went into things like physician engagement, not from philanthropic, but for just the hospital, just the health care system. How do we better engage? Is this a substitute for the appropriate pay, proper contracts, proper timing, you know, up support and services, equipment?
No, but it's another arrow in the quiver. Did you know that when we have gratitude received, meaning physicians are actively engaged in receiving patients and families gratitude that it actually helps to reduce burnout? American Hospital Association. All of this data and a lot more signal that when we engage with physicians as to be a an important but respectful part of the process, identifying and connecting us to patients who are having great experiences, larger major gifts, larger amounts of retention, quicker process aligns with things that we're concerned about when it comes to, the physician and the caregivers being more aligned with the institution.
It helps to reduce burnout and turnover. And that's nothing to say of all of the data that says when someone expresses gratitude and has it received, it's actually good for their health from vital signs. So this is now on the patient side. Vital signs, cholesterol levels drop. Your stress drops. Relationships are better. Actually. There's now a study that says, actually from , those who have state gifts actually live longer.
Why am I doing this? I have a number of clients and potential clients where part of the hurdle that we're dealing with is actually in the executive suite. It's not that they're bad people, they're phenomenal people. They're doing their very best. But whether it's lack of accountability that we can't get the kind of accountability we need to, in a system, move gift officers towards the things we need to be doing to.
We need a voice that's going to signal how important philanthropy is to others, to their realization that it needs to be aligned with strategic planning. All things from my book five role ability, we're back to alignment with our CEO suite, with our CEO in the C-suite. All this is to say is, is that we cannot do this alone.
The reason this became important is, is that the content I was challenged with wasn't just to present it to foundation to the team, large group, but to take that same messaging into the executive suite and watch their eyes begin to get wide as they begin to realize, if you want to raise more money, it's going to come from grateful patients.
The data tells us that best practice is telling us that, and the best way to do that data driven is to engage with the physician, the referral agent, the people that are closest and most trusted that are your patients and their families. Higher ed, it's about faculty and researchers who is affecting the the end user, either formally or now, social service, other nonprofit sectors about who are the people applying the mission into the community.
If they're not engaged, you're losing credibility. You're leaving money on the table. So this is a call to action. How do you put this information in front of your executive team to get their support, to get their buying? Or maybe you're found to have a foundation board. How do you get this, a run of the system board for them to realize that philanthropy isn't just something that happens over there in the foundation, it's happening.
It needs to happen throughout the organization. We need a proactive, structured, consistent process to continue to push in to the places that serve the mission. We in philanthropy are the ones helping to fund it.
It means that you need to be more of an executive who knows about philanthropy than just a philanthropy expert. You can do this today. Great data about health care. It applies in many other places. But if we don't turn in a meaningful way to get buy in from other parts of our organization where we are not siloed, we will not accomplish what we want to and what we need to, and that is to find the best people for us to talk to, to hear what they want to do about the organization or the community or whatever.
Partner that with, what the strategy is of what we're doing that meets them, where they are, those prospects we're trying to figure out how to elevate towards transformational gifts, not a dollar figure, but that emotional state where they they believe what they're doing, says something about who they are, and we're helping them do that. That gets us more transformational, gets.
I didn't mean to be harpy today. If I came across that way, I apologize. But we need this. And maybe so more in healthcare than anywhere else because our government isn't going to continue to pay. Our commercial payers aren't going to continue to pay. And yes, their profits are big in the commercial markets. And that's a worthy conversation.
But there's a structured restructuring coming or happening that we're going to have to address, and philanthropy can be part of that answer. But we need those partners who have that trust and then take that trust and do what we do, really sell it. And I don't mean selling what you do. I mean sell how important we are and how important that relationship is.
That partnership is, and then use that trust to make good things happen.
Don't forget to check out the blogs at Hallett philanthropy.com two week on various things industry to personal things. I see nd rates won't take you about a minute. That's how it philanthropy.com backslash blogs which go to length been hit on the block button. Also if you'd like to reach out to me it's podcast of Hallett philanthropy.com. I feel a sense that health care in particular, but a lot of sectors are really beginning to feel the pressure of inflation, of finances and other things.
And in philanthropy, we've we have to not just sit back and wait for that to happen. We have to push in to get ahead of it. Be strategic as to how we do that. That includes partnerships. If we want better opportunities, we need better partnerships that get us those conversations. Because that leads us to my all time favorite saying, some people watch things happen, some people watch things.
Some people make things happen. Some people watch things happen. Then there are those who wondered what happened. We want greater conversations. We want to be people who make things happen. If we want to find more people who also, from a philanthropic perspective, want to make things happen, then we need better partnerships to take care of the people and the things in our community that are wondering what happened.
That's a great way to build strategy, to be everything that you can be, and the nonprofit can be, to take care of the people in the community. And that's a great career. I'm hoping today gives you some tactical things to think about. Data that you can use that will allow you to be more effective in what are role or goal is greater fundraising success for the missions?
We believe it. I'll look forward to seeing you the next time right back here on the next edition of around with Randall. And don't forget, make it a great day.