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Steve Rum and Jane Wheeler teaching at the Johns Hopkins Medicine Philanthropy Institute

SERVICES WE OFFER
Our tailored client plans may consist of one or more of these program modules.

Steve Rum chatting with students and faculty at the JHMPI

GRATEFUL PATIENT FUNDRAISING 

Grateful patient fundraising is a cornerstone of success in medical development.  We are the only experienced team who has conducted rigorous research in GPFR, and based on evidence, we created a GPFR curriculum and training approach at Johns Hopkins Medicine.  In this module, we personalize the training in GPFR for key stakeholders, providing both individual and small-group sessions with development executives, institutional leaders, and clinicians.  The module’s specific timeframe and program deliver results with efficiency and sustainability.

Students collaborating on white boards

STRATEGIC PLANNING

A good strategic plan provides focus; it clarifies values, prioritizes goals, defines outcomes, and specifies the path to achieving them. The process of strategic planning can also serve as a culture-building exercise that aligns teams and organizations around shared purposes. Our strategic planning module proceeds systematically, beginning at the leadership level, then progressively engaging a broader cross-section of the development operation as we move toward action planning and roll-out. With clearly specified deliverables and a mix of on-site and virtual sessions, this customized module spans three to six months with the option for support in implementation and evaluation.

Steve Rum teaching at JHMPI Summer Institute 2019

ORGANIZATIONAL REDESIGN

Changes in the institutional and/or external environment of Medicine warrant re-assessment of the medical development operation’s structure, in order to sustain or improve its efficiency and effectiveness. For example, institutional growth and an expanded “footprint” may require a restructuring of development so as to best serve the institution’s mission, near-term purposes, and ultimate vision. In this module, we evaluate the current structure of the development operation with respect to performance and efficiency, with the goal of identifying opportunities for greater success due to a more rational alignment of development teams, individuals, and work plan goals with current and foreseeable future institutional realities.

Steve Rum and a student one-on-one at the JHMPI Summer Institute

FOCUSED CONSULTATION

Steve Rum, Jane Wheeler and the team at Johns Hopkins Medicine in 2022

LEADERSHIP COACHING

Our executive coaching offers flexible, one-on-one, guidance for fundraising leaders who hold responsibility within their institutions for the organization’s future state. This module includes a licensed Emotional Intelligence (Eqi) assessment followed by one-on-one coaching in emotionally-aware leadership, decision making, communication, goal setting, and time management.

Dedication program brochures for opening of new clinical towers at Johns Hopkins Hospital

CAMPAIGN PLANNING

Preparation for a new campaign is an excellent time to clarify priorities and align development structure, operations, and strategy with institutional directions. Our team’s experience includes two multi-billion dollar campaigns at Johns Hopkins; learning from these, we have honed an approach that entails pre-work, priority planning, data (e.g., pipeline and stakeholder) analysis, budgetary assessment, development performance and capacity assess-ment, and volunteer and staff management.  This module’s implementation includes SWOT and/or SOAR analysis as the basis for campaign priorities, an inventory of stakeholders (chairs, directors, shining-star faculty, leadership-level donors) vis-a-vis engagement, and communication planning.

Steve Rum working with a donor at the opening of the new clinical towers at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, MD

TRANSFORMATIVE PROPOSAL PREPARATION  

Globally, large disparities of wealth create not only inequity but also tremendous opportunity for medical institutions to advance biomedical knowledge and improve patient care. Our experience with securing multiple seven-, eight-, and even nine-figure philanthropic gifts, combined with knowledge we have garnered from other fields including marketing, behavioral economics, neuroscience, and psychology, has led us to a strategic approach that weaves proposal development into the full fundraising trajectory of cultivation, solicitation, and stewardship. In this module, we offer both the larger strategic frame for developing transformative proposals and pragmatic guidance with proposal structure, design, content, and writing.

For institutions and leaders facing a current (or imminent) challenge, we offer a new model of consultation in which we guide development executives and other institutional leaders as they address critical issues arising in their direction and management of a complex organization. While this area is specifically packaged into a module, we do develop a customized approach for the client, based on defined goals and timelines, and we suggest a minimum number of on-site visits and zoom conferences with the option for “as-needed” services thereafter.

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