How to Grow Employee Giving Systemwide (Part II)
In my last article, I shared a few tried-and-true hacks of growing an employee giving campaign across a complex healthcare system. If you missed it, check out Part I here. Today I'm rounding out that list with three more mindset shifts that will help you find success.
#4 Be Visible
There’s a reason Presidential hopefuls prioritize bus tours and town hall meetings across the US during campaign season. The best way to connect and build trust with constituencies will always be face-to-face interactions. in the same way, if you are just getting started with a system-wide employee giving campaign (or if you are expanding into a new location) - don’t sell short the importance of simply connecting in person. Be visible.
But how much visibility is realistic when you are flying solo and trying to keep all the plates spinning in a multi-location system? Keep in mind one of your main keys to scalability in a system-wide campaign is to grow local leaders at each of your satellite locations who will carry the torch of your campaign message. So when do make an onsite visit, focus your time to maximize building relationships and listening (more this below), sharing and spreading the core messages of the campaign and helping identify ways for your local leaders to take the campaign message and model and make it their own.
If you can maximize your time, in one full day you can meet with key stakeholders, lead an information session with volunteers and incorporate time to brainstorm ways to customize the campaign for their own campus. Don’t miss the magic - be visible.
#5 Ask for Feedback & Evolve
There is a real temptation to just sit back and make a centralized campaign plan and then expect it to rollout with fanfare across your system just because that's easiest for you. However, if you design your campaign in a silo, expect it to have limited results.
"If you design your campaign in a silo, expect it to have limited results."
To build a successful system-wide campaign requires a campaign framework that is inherently replicable - with the ability for customization and adoption at each local facility.
One way to prepare your campaign framework to support this is simply to listen. Are you inviting input from voices across your system before, during and after the campaign?
The best way to gain understanding of the ways your campaign is perceived and received by others is simply to ask. We have used a trifecta of one-on-one discussion, small group debriefs and broad-based surveys to trudge through the good, the bad and ugly. These checks and balances help us to figure out simply what works and resonates on the local level - and what doesn’t.
It's true our greatest breakthroughs happen when we open the channels of communication and learn from those experiencing the campaign and not just those at the helm of creating it. Make sure your campaign plan isn’t so rigid that you miss an opportunity to make it better serve your growing audiences when taking it system-wide.
#6 Play the long game & set realistic expectations
Employee giving is the ultimate long game - because after all, employees are a group of donors who will literally be in front of you day-after-day. They have the unique vantage point to be shown first-hand what happens as a result of their personal philanthropy. So with a constituency that’s so close to your mission and so critical to engage - you want to do this relationship right.
We’ve always fought for the belief internally that playing the long game with employee giving is by far the best approach. Development is intrinsically about building relationships and naturally that should be what is for employee giving as well. Don’t sell your mission short by taking a shortcut here. How is your campaign cultivating relationships with employees throughout the ranks and therefore building trust and belief in the philanthropic mission of your hospital system along the way?
As a development leader, the only way you have the freedom to focus on the long game is also to have realistic expectations of results. Start small, and build from there. Don’t rush and force participation through methods that will jeopardize your campaign’s long-term ability to be leveraged by playing for short term wins. When you do employee giving right - and build a framework for moving employees into greater understanding of philanthropy - you are building the footing required for a fully engaged culture of philanthropy.
What do you think?
Are you facing the hurdles of taking your campaign message across many locations? I’d love to hear your best tips too - please jump in the comments and share your thoughts.
Jonathan McCoy, CFRE is Director of Annual Giving at INTEGRIS Foundation and Founder and Chief Visionary of We are for Good. {Read more] [Email Jon]