MedStar Health

Situation

MedStar Health (MedStar) is a $4.2 billion healthcare system serving patients throughout Washington, DC, and Maryland. Orr Group has partnered on an embedded basis with MedStar for more than six years. The partnership began when Orr Group stepped in to serve as onsite Interim Chief Development Officer following fundraising staff turnover at MedStar’s largest hospital, Washington Hospital Center (WHC). In that role, we drove frontline fundraising for the WHC Foundation, whilst at the same time conducting an overall assessment of the organization’s philanthropic endeavors.

Solution

As Interim CDO, Orr Group assisted WHC Foundation to meet its revenue goals by supporting major gift, foundation, corporate, and board fundraising. We created training modules for MedStar’s philanthropy staff, conducted board training sessions, and conducted a board training retreat for the Foundation.

From this initial assignment, the relationship expanded, and Orr Group was engaged to provide executive management support and counsel to MedStar on the development of its philanthropy program. We were also tasked with preparing for various visionary growth campaigns, including a campaign to raise $30 million for the WHC Heart & Vascular Institute.

Orr Group engaged key stakeholders in formal conversations about the current role of philanthropy within the institution, looking for ways to build from solid annual fundraising performance towards transformational philanthropy. We also scanned other regional and national health systems to identify trends, benchmarks, and best practices in medical philanthropy. Our findings and recommendations formed the basis for a new path for MedStar to realize its philanthropic potential.

To assist MedStar as it moved forward down that path, Orr Group conducted a major gifts fundraising assessment across the MedStar hospital system, developing recommendations based on best practices of several other hospital systems, and taking into consideration the current infrastructure in place at MedStar. Orr Group worked with MedStar Georgetown University Hospital (MGUH), to implement those recommendations, managing a prospective donor portfolio of more than $10 million.

Orr Group also collaborated with MGUH to develop a campaign to reach patients with a desire to express gratitude through philanthropy. We conducted research on MGUH’s top 200 prospects to prioritize and assign them for cultivation and solicitation and developed physician testimonials to reinforce the need and impact the campaign would have on the MGUH campus.

As MedStar has built its collaboration with Georgetown University Medical Center, Orr Group has served in a coordinating role, designing and operationalizing a plan for a joint $500 million comprehensive campaign. The campaign will raise funds to build a new surgical pavilion on the Georgetown campus as well as fund clinical care, research, and educational initiatives.