AHP Connect Articles

Originally published in the October 2017 AHP Connect.

Carrie L. Boardwick, CFRE
Vice President of Philanthropy Operations
MedStar Health
Baltimore, Maryland AHP member since 2004

What’s your favorite part of your job?

It’s being able to share the stories of gratitude that our patients have shared with us!

I love being able to interact with so many sects of people. You’re working with the patients and donors, but also with the philanthropy team, physicians, leadership, and such a variety of people that no two days are the same.

What areas of giving is MedStar Health focusing on right now?

Our priority is working with the physicians for them to identify grateful patients and family members. Once we receive a grateful patient or family member introduction from a physician, we reach out to that person to hear their gratitude story. If someone desires to express their gratitude through a philanthropic investment, we talk with them about what their vision is and try to marry that with what we could to at MedStar.

MedStar is focusing on many areas of giving. We have the traditional “bricks-and-mortar” campaigns, as well as programmatic needs. As far as giving, we always follow donor intent and what drives the donor’s passion.

We have principal giving, leadership giving, and major giving, all varying by gift amount. We try to look for what a meaningful gift would look like for that family. We’re not looking at the level of giving as much as how we want to build that relationship and translate that into something really special for the donor and for MedStar. If you focus on the relationship, you will ultimately get to the end result of a meaningful expression of gratitude.

How does MedStar Health reach out to the community in order to add partners to its Corporate Partners Program?

We work very closely with MedStar leadership to help identify relationships. We partner with the leadership to discover how can we translate their connections into something that’s meaningful for our patients.

Have you run campaigns similar to the 2017 Power to Heal Campaign before?

“Power to Heal” is our employee giving campaign. It’s our sixth year in the campaign. Our goal is to build a culture of gratitude and giving back.

The 2017 Power to Heal Campaign invites associates and physicians to invest through philanthropy and support patient experience initiatives across the system. Learn more about how MedStar publicizes its campaign here.

You’ve attended three AHP Leading Forward Executive Summits. How has your participation at the summit helped your career?

It’s always helpful in understanding what leadership trends are on the horizon and what are best practices, especially in the system environment. It’s also helpful to meet leaders in the field and ask them for support and advice. Yes, you learn the “technical stuff” in the education pieces, but the networking is also really important.

How has working with AHP’s benchmarking services improved your organization’s performance?

Benchmarking helps us to understand what other systems are doing and develop that best practice piece.

What is one piece of advice you would give someone new to healthcare philanthropy?

Learn the health care landscape and what makes health care philanthropy different from other forms of philanthropy. If you are located in a corporate office, make sure you visit the entities and learn the different perspectives from physicians, leadership and your team. It will help you form your decisions with a more well-rounded approach to philanthropy while engaging those constituents so they have a better understanding of what we do and how they can play a role.

For more information on the 2017 AHP Leading Forward Executive Summit, click here.