Hire more fundraising staff during recession, new AHP study concludes
5/19/2009
As the recession's grip tightened on nonprofit hospitals and health care systems in the US and Canada, high-performing philanthropic fundraisers in charge of major gifts and planned giving programs were often their most effective and efficient rain-makers, according to the Association for Healthcare Philanthropy (AHP). These and other important findings come from the latest series of reports from the AHP Performance Benchmarking Service for fiscal year 2007, which takes in the early months of the current recession. One bright spot came from major gifts given by individual contributors, which averaged $55,000 per gift. The highest performing fundraising organizations put stronger, longer-term emphasis on cultivating major gifts, investing, on average, three times more than other surveyed organizations but earning five times more in high-dollar gifts.