International Stewardship Award Spotlight

Children's Hospital Colorado Foundation: Dr.'s In+sight 

2017 ISA Winner

View original submission

2020 Update

For two years, staff at Children's Hospital Colorado Foundation put together an experiential event, walking their Children's Circle of Care members ($10,000) through a real-life scenario, to be met by the actual family who had gone through the scenario in real life at the end.

The event was impactful, purposeful, and meaningful. In response to the consortium of children's hospitals around the country dissolving their national stewardship events, each individual pediatric health center (part of the Woodmark Group) had to innovate new ways to acknowledge and steward their donor base.

Children's Hospital Colorado Foundation created an experience for donors that was meaningful, and their ingenuity and creativity won them the 2017 ADRP Event award. But, after two years, staff reevaluated and decided not to host the event again. For them, the amount of staff time and resources put into the event was not eliciting enough of a return to make the labor and time worth it.

In this COVID-19 world, the donor relations profession at all levels and institutions is forced to reckon with decisions like this as budgets and resources are stretched. In the pre-pandemic world of fundraising, events were the answer to everything. And, at times, not much thought was put into the purpose, intended outcome and how to measure it.

Children's Hospital Colorado Foundation made the decision not to host their award-winning event for the third year in a row prior to the pandemic outbreak, but their story serves as a reminder to all in this profession that just because an event is innovative and successful doesn’t mean it stays that way.

As the donor relations profession adjusts to this new paradigm for the foreseeable future, it is important to take the extra time to evaluate current tactics and do a deep analysis on their value: Are they serving the purpose? What is the end goal? Are we accomplishing it and how is it being measured?

This deep thought will challenge us to be innovative in entirely new ways and the end result will likely be more positive for donors.