Turn New Donors into Loyal Supporters
Fewer than 20% of first-time healthcare donors give a second gift.
Nonprofit Mensa helps hospital foundations reverse this trend.
Fewer than 20% of first-time healthcare donors give a second gift.
Nonprofit Mensa helps hospital foundations reverse this trend.
We help hospital foundations convert first-time donors into lifelong supporters — without overhauling their entire fundraising program.
➡️ Strengthen your annual fund with year-long stewardship strategies that make every donor feel seen and valued.
➡️ Grow your donor base with a grateful patient email campaign that turns patient appreciation into first-time gifts.
➡️ Map your donor journey from first gift to mid-level donor so no one falls through the cracks.
Hospital foundations lose 80% of first-time donors after the first gift. Using strategies grounded in philanthropy research and behavioral science, we build the welcome series, stewardship touchpoints, and annual giving campaigns that keep donors engaged and coming back.
Whether you need a mid-level giving program, grateful patient outreach, or a new donor welcome kit, we plan, create, and execute the programs you need, from start to finish, so your team can stay focused on donor relationships.
We modernize your digital fundraising strategy with research-backed best practices that increase donor response rates, lifetime value, and ROI.
Nonprofit Mensa helps healthcare philanthropy teams build smarter donor engagement strategies that inspire donors to stay connected and give more.
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Donor loyalty is won or lost in the first 90 days. We build multi-touch donor journeys that keep every donor engaged and coming back.
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We connect staff to your mission from Day 1, and build a culture of philanthropy that drives long-term support and recurring giving.
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We assess your program from every angle and custom-build a 24-month roadmap around your team size, donor makeup, and revenue goals.
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We build multichannel campaigns that reach people in the right place, at the right moment, to turn their appreciation into lasting support.
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We build research-backed annual giving programs — from strategy and segmentation to appeals, email, direct mail, and lapsed donor reactivation — start to finish.
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We identify, steward, and upgrade mid-level donors using personalized appeals, email automation, and giving society strategies that move top prospects into your major gift pipeline.
We take time to learn about your challenges, voice, and donors, so every message sounds personal and drives giving.
With 20+ years in healthcare journalism and nonprofit content marketing, we speak your language and understand your world.
We apply behavior-driven tactics to boost giving, strengthen donor loyalty, and build grateful patient fundraising programs.
We provide senior-level support that delivers results and makes you look good. No surprise handoffs. No junior staff.
❶ They use performance data and donor psychology to build lasting donor relationships.
❷ They inspire leaders and clinicians to champion healthcare philanthropy.
❸ They implement multichannel digital fundraising strategies to improve donor engagement and ROI.
BONUS: They avoid these five common donor retention mistakes.
Nonprofit Mensa agency helps your healthcare organization become a high performer through strategic content, compelling storytelling, and proven digital donor engagement strategies.
The M.E.N.S.A. Method is a five-step strategy built specifically for hospital foundations — from crafting donor messaging that drives action, to scaling the systems that make it sustainable.
Your hospital foundation needs more than just best practices — you need better practices that use data and donor psychology to engage donors, increase giving, and build long-term loyalty.
Here’s how we help:
Smarter Healthcare Donor Growth: We use targeted digital strategies to increase donor acquisition and donor engagement.
Stronger Storytelling to Communicate Donor Impact: Our team of healthcare marketers, donor engagement specialists, and designers craft compelling, emotional content that connects with mid-level donors and inspires giving.
Integrated Fundraising Strategies: We blend direct mail, email, and digital marketing strategies to inspire repeat giving.
Personalized Donor Engagement Strategies: We use data-driven insights to build segmented donor journeys that engage donors based on how they want to be contacted and what they care about most.
Sustainable Healthcare Fundraising Growth: Our scalable strategies keep your donor pipeline strong, from grateful patients to capital campaign donors.
Book your free 30-minute strategy session and start building a smarter donor growth strategy today!
Step 1: Pick a time that works for you.
Step 2: Bring your questions!
For example:
What should we send new donors in the first 90 days — and how do we get them to give a second gift?
How do we build a mid-level giving program when we're already stretched thin?
How do we get physicians to refer grateful patients?
How does our small team even begin to launch an employee giving program?
Step 3: We'll identify the gaps in your healthcare donor engagement strategy.
We’ll dive into your biggest challenges and walk through what’s working, what isn’t, and how we can close those gaps with smarter donor engagement strategies.
Step 4: Walk Away with Actionable Next Steps.
Walk away with 2–3 personalized recommendations you can implement within weeks.
A hospital foundation fundraising consultant helps development teams build the strategies, content, and systems that turn donors into long-term supporters. That includes annual fund strategy, new donor welcome kit development, grateful patient program design, and donor journey mapping — the work that often gets deprioritized when your team is stretched thin. The right consultant works as an extension of your team, not an outside vendor who doesn't know your world.
A grateful patient program is a structured approach to identifying patients who had a meaningful care experience and may want to give back to the hospital that helped them. It involves working with physicians and clinical staff to recognize signs of patient gratitude, generate referrals, send appropriate outreach through the foundation, and convert patient appreciation into annual giving. For most hospital foundations, grateful patients are the single strongest donor pipeline they're not tapping into.
Donor journey mapping means designing intentional, multi-touch communication strategies that guide donors from their first gift toward deeper, long-term engagement. For hospital foundations, that means mapping every touchpoint, from the first thank-you to mid-level giving conversations, so no donor falls through the cracks. Most foundations are losing donors between touchpoints they don't even know are missing.
Fewer than 20% of first-time healthcare donors ever give a second gift, according to the 2024 AHP Report on Giving — which means the first 90 days after a gift are critical. Foundations that beat that number typically have a structured new donor welcome kit, a multi-touch email series that arrives before the next ask, and stewardship content that shows donors the impact of their gift. The goal is to make every first-time donor feel seen and valued before you ever ask them to give again.
Donors who only hear from you at appeal time are much harder to retain than donors who feel connected to your mission throughout the year. Year-round stewardship — quarterly impact updates, personal touchpoints, recognition moments that have nothing to do with asking — builds the kind of relationship that makes giving again feel natural. Foundations that prioritize consistent engagement see stronger second-gift rates and higher donor lifetime value.
The biggest barrier isn't physician resistance — it's that no one has made the connection between patient gratitude and foundation impact clear enough, or made the referral process easy enough to bother with. Physicians respond when the ask is simple, when they see the outcome of their referrals, and when a peer or leader they respect champions the program. Building internal messaging frameworks and clinician engagement tools that speak the physician's language is what moves the needle.
Mid-level giving is one of the highest-ROI opportunities in hospital foundation fundraising and one of the most underdeveloped. Most foundations already have mid-level donors in their database — they're just not being stewarded that way. Start there, build a targeted communication and upgrade strategy around that group, communicate the donor's impact, and you can generate significant revenue without adding headcount.
The first 90 days are when donor loyalty is formed ... or lost! A strong new donor sequence typically includes a personal thank-you within 24 hours, a mission introduction that shows the impact of their gift, and several touchpoints that deepen engagement before the next ask arrives. Foundations that do this well don't just see better second-gift rates — they see donors who feel connected enough to upgrade over time.