What happens when philanthropy becomes part of a health system's DNA? In this conversation, Inova Health System's Toni Ardabell, chief of clincal enterprise operations, and Sage Bolte, Ph.D., chief philanthropy officer and president of the Inova Health Foundation, share how aligning philanthropy with mission and clinical priorities allows Inova to accelerate innovation, expand high-acuity services, and invest in the programs that change lives. 

Tom Haederle

Welcome to Advancing Health. The impact of philanthropy can be a difference maker for a hospital or health system's mission of great patient care. In this episode of a four part podcast series, two experts from a leading health system share how philanthropy empowers clinical excellence and improves patient outcomes.

Sue Ellen Wagner

Hi everyone. Welcome to Advancing Health. I'm Sue Ellen Wagner, vice president of trustee engagement and strategy with the American Hospital Association. I'm happy to be joined by the leadership of Inova Health today. I'm happy to introduce Toni Ardabell, chief of clinical enterprise operations at Inova Health System and Sage Bolte, chief philanthropy officer and president of the Inova Health Foundation.

Sue Ellen Wagner

My first question: philanthropy can have a huge impact in helping a hospital or a health system achieve its mission and caring for our patients of our community while also supporting our operations. Can you talk about the role that philanthropy is playing right now on health care, and can you also talk about some of that broad, high level role that philanthropy is playing in Inova?

Sue Ellen Wagner

Toni, let's start with you.

Toni Ardabell

Philanthropy is extremely important to health care, and what it helps us do is provide services that we could not provide otherwise. And at Inova in particular, it works with our mission and it works with our priorities. We have three year priorities and annual priorities, and Sage makes sure that the fundraising is actually meeting those priorities. It helps us develop our service lines and our service lines, our specialty, for instance, neurosciences, pediatrics.

Toni Ardabell

And it really helps program development in those service lines so that we can offer extremely high acuity care and care that the community just wouldn't have without the help of philanthropy.

Sue Ellen Wagner

Thanks, Toni. Sage?

Sage Bolte, Ph.D.

Yeah. I think, you know, philanthropy across the nation right now is critical. We know that we are facing headwinds that some of us have really never faced before, and the opportunity for philanthropy to come forward - our community to come forward and support their local health system or hospital is critical. Right now, philanthropy is going to help keep the lights on for some health systems.

Sage Bolte, Ph.D.

Philanthropy in many systems are going to help extend care to areas where care might be minimized currently. The other aspect that philanthropy helps, at least at Inova, it really helps accelerate the things that we want to do but may not be able to do today, tomorrow, or five years from now, but with the support of philanthropy, allows us to accelerate on the work that we're committed to doing.

Sage Bolte, Ph.D.

The other aspect I think of philanthropy, at least at Inova, is, as Tony alluded, philanthropy follows strategy. And that's really critical because we don't want philanthropy starting and stopping. We don't want it to start something that then can't be sustained. We really want the investment of our community to be a legacy of the investment of the community.

Sage Bolte, Ph.D.

And that's really where I think currently and in the past and the future, philanthropy has such an opportunity to make an impact on the health of our communities and really connect people's hearts to the health and health outcomes of our community.

Sue Ellen Wagner

Thank you both. I think it's really important that connection to community because that really connects to the mission. Next question, I'm sure you've heard a lot about this before. Why is cancer and heart getting all of the support and the dollars? How do you begin to approach answering that question when folks ask you that from the community?

Toni Ardabell

They're getting all of the dollars because many people use those services. Many families have people who've had heart issues or who've had cancer, and so people's hearts are already tied to those two service lines. The other thing about those service lines is they are sort of image makers for health care systems. People think if you can do heart transplants or you can do the most sophisticated oncology like Car-T, then everything you do must be really good

Toni Ardabell

and you have a very high level of care in your organization. I also think a certain type of physician is attracted to those two specialties, and they are not shy about going out and working for philanthropic dollars. They will work with the foundation, they will show up at events. They will go to national meetings. And so they're very involved in that fundraising as well.

Toni Ardabell

It helps support their research. It helps support, special programs like We Have a Wonderful Life with cancer program that was started by philanthropy and continues to get supported by not 100%, but does get supported by it every year. And so they actually are two service lines that understand the importance of philanthropy to what they're able to do for their patients.

Sue Ellen Wagner

Yeah, I think the physician point is a really critical one that most of us probably don't think of.

Sage Bolte, Ph.D.

We have to remember that more than 85% of philanthropic support comes from grateful patients. And that is an important statistic, because when you think about the gratitude of patients and where the highest volume of patients live, it often is in those two areas in cancer and in heart. And beyond that, the relationships that they establish - because these are not short term

Sage Bolte, Ph.D.

you know, two visit relationships - these are relationships that they build over months, over years, sometimes over decades. And so the gratitude that these patients feel and their families feel for the care in which they receive, it shows up in the way that they provide philanthropic dollars. And to Tony's point, because many of these physicians, nurses, APPs, social workers like myself, I'm an oncology social worker, went into the field with the intention of those longer term relationships.

Sage Bolte, Ph.D.

I think they understand that, and they are capable and more willing to connect when they hear, "Thank you so much. Thank you for saving my mom's life. What can I do for you?" They're not shy to say, would you be willing to talk to one of my colleagues on the foundation team, right? Would you tell your story?

Sage Bolte, Ph.D.

Would you be willing to support the research that saved your mom's life, right? Those kinds of conversations they don't shy away from. The other piece of that, though, that I think it took me a while to understand, is when cancer is supported, at least at Inova, when cancer is supported, our musculoskeletal team is supported because what happens when a philanthropic dollar comes is it does offset the operational investment.

Sage Bolte, Ph.D.

So it frees up additional operational investments to be able to support something that might not have had philanthropic support or might not have had the operational dollars. And that's something that Tony and myself and the rest of cabinet are really working on creating that culture and that mindset of: we all win when a philanthropic gift comes in. We all win when a philanthropic gift comes in to any service line because it does support something that otherwise would have either had operational dollar support or wouldn't have happened.

Sage Bolte, Ph.D.

And would have waited for, you know, months to years. So we all win.

Sue Ellen Wagner

Yeah, very important points. Thanks so much. And that leads to my next question. You know, when people think of philanthropy and donations, they tend to focus on those large donors from the community. But there's really, you know, so much more than that. Can you both talk a little bit about the successes that you've had when creating philanthropic initiatives, and then the balanced donor audience?

Sue Ellen Wagner

We talked a little bit about that. You both did with the physicians, and then, you know, the community members who have that heart and cancer connection. But can you elaborate a little bit more on that?

Sage Bolte, Ph.D.

You know, again, I think what's really important in order to be successful in fundraising for a health system is that you have clear focus on your mission and you have clear alignment with the strategic priorities of the organization. That is critical. And when you do that, and when everyone in leadership is able to articulate what your mission is, what your strategic priorities are, and where the philanthropic alignment is with those strategic priorities, you're able to tell a really powerful story to the community.

Sage Bolte, Ph.D.

And that story in many what we call segments in philanthropy is critical. So, yes, a lot of health care right now is winning with the larger donors who are coming and giving substantial what we would call transformational gifts, right? Multimillion dollar gifts. And those are truly transformational and life giving to an organization. And there's only so many of those.

Sage Bolte, Ph.D.

So to be successful in philanthropy, you really have to look at a wider scope of donor opportunities. So those we call those mid-level giving donors, those annual donors, the people that are willing to give you $100 a month or $100 a year, those opportunities to keep them connected, that $100 is so valuable to them, and they're giving it to you.

Sage Bolte, Ph.D.

And our opportunity as an organization is to ensure that they feel that $100 matters.

Toni Ardabell

So what I would say from an operations perspective, I've learned over the years how important it is to take every gift seriously. I would also say we need to role model giving to our own organizations. If we believe in the work we're doing as executives, then we need to step up and donate ourselves. I also know, I tell Sage this, I have the experience of one family

Toni Ardabell

when I was in charge of women's and children's services, sent me a check out of the clear blue sky because their baby was in the NICU, had never really been involved with Inova. It was maybe a $10,000 check and I called them to thank them and asked if they would like to be recognized in some way. They're like, no, no, we don't want to get involved,

Toni Ardabell

we just want to give you money. And every year that increased. For the 6 or 7 years I was in that job, the check kept getting more every year. And I've learned it's important to let people give to where their hearts are. And if you've been a patient of ours, maybe it was the NICU, or maybe it was the pediatric floor or maybe it was the cardiac ICU.

Toni Ardabell

Whatever you give is meaningful. And folks need to know that their giving makes a difference. And when you believe that and your heart's in it already, then you're willing to give the larger and larger gifts that you can afford to give and know that it's appreciated.

Sue Ellen Wagner

Thank you both. A lot of really great important points. I really like the fact that no matter of the dollar amount of the gifts that you need to make everyone feel important, that they're contributing to their local hospital. So I think that's a really important takeaway. And that leads to my last question. Do you both want to share any final thoughts with our members on the philanthropy strategy that they should be looking at today?

Toni Ardabell

Hire a Sage Bolte! No, actually your leader is very important. It helps if you're a clinical leader in health care for fundraising because Sage understands the organization and what we do here in a way that a non-clinical leader may not understand. There are good non-clinical leaders in philanthropy but I think it is even better for the team to have a clinical leader there.

Toni Ardabell

And there needs to be total integration between philanthropy, strategy and operations. I think that's the secret.

Sage Bolte, Ph.D.

Where health systems have an opportunity is just to reinforce what Tony said. Your chief philanthropy officer should be at the table with the executives, issued a report to the CEO. And I'm fairly biased on that because I've seen the success that can be had when your CEO is highly integrated into the philanthropic strategy and opportunities. When you see your CEO giving others gifts, creating a culture of philanthropy, not just externally, where people around the health system have the opportunity to give, but those inside the health system, those who are caring for patients. When they give

Sage Bolte, Ph.D.

they also are, more connected to how the gifts have impact. They're more connected to the work of philanthropy, and they're more willing to tell their own story of gratitude, of where they've had impact. So giving, as Tony said, at the highest level, down to our frontline staff. And again, that could be $5 a year. But knowing that they're giving to the organization, that culture of philanthropy, of both giving but also connecting people to the opportunity to give is really, really important.

Sue Ellen Wagner

Toni and Sage, thank you so much for joining me on this podcast today to discuss the impacts that philanthropy has had on your community and your employees. We really can't wait to hear what's next for Inova and appreciate all that you're doing for your community.

Tom Haederle

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