To raise more money, every single NHS hospital charity must focus on visibility

NHS charities are often the best-kept secret in hospitals. Our offices are hidden away, staff don’t know what to do when asked about making donations, the hospital rarely talks about the impact of their charity in their PR or internal comms, patients don’t know they can give to a dedicated hospital charity and the charity is constantly battling for awareness.Awareness of charities, particularly on our hospital sites is absolutely critical to the health of our income. Patients need to be aware of our charity to consider making a gift.

On our campus there were at least 20-30 other fundraising organisations present (including Cancer Research UK, Maggie’s, Macmillan, Wallace & Gromit, the Air Ambulance plus lots of disease-specific patient organisations). When donors have many options to choose from, a strong brand can be the difference between getting a donation and being overlooked. Patients need to see evidence of the hospital charity on site for them to be reassured that our charity is honest, transparent, dependable and endorsed by the hospital. Without brand awareness, NHS charities will never raise the money they aspire to raise so visibility in your hospital is pivotal to your success.

When non-profit organisations have strong brand equity (the public has a strong emotional connection to their brand), they are able to raise more money and gain more volunteers. We realised something had to be done when a Trustee announced in a board meeting that a friend had tried to donate £10,000 to the charity but none of the hospital staff knew how to put them in touch. The donor had got frustrated and simply given their donation to Macmillan ‘because it was easier.” At that point, 8 years ago, we made increasing visibility of the charity in the hospital one of our strategic priorities. A priority shared by others such as Newcastle Hospital Charities who include this “priority action” in their 5-year strategy; ‘Increased visibility, profile and understanding of our Charity within the Trust and the wider community.”

Why is it so hard for NHS charities to be seen, valued and prioritised in their hospital? Well, hospitals are constantly fire-fighting. Think about the last few years alone; Covid-19, post pandemic recovery (i.e. catching up with out of control waiting lists), nursing strikes, doctors’ strikes, junior doctors’ strikes (plus all of the other organisations voting to strike), crumbling RAAC rooves, 4+ hour waits in A&E and ambulance queuing. The NHS is an incredibly resilient organisation but there is a new type of crisis to deal with every week and they must of course, put patient safety above all else. It’s no wonder it’s hard for charities to ask for their needs to be considered.

Hospitals are also culturally risk averse. It’s very hard to convince them to say ‘yes’ to anything new because of their anchoring bias. E.g. they don’t like to do anything that’s never been done in the NHS before. Culturally, fundraising has not been historically visible in hospitals, and so it can make some people feel uncomfortable, particularly as the NHS has always been “free at the point of use”; one of the core principles of the NHS when it was founded. Fundraising can also have negative connotations. The 2012 Charity Commission study into public trust and confidence in charities revealed that 67% of the public agreed that some fundraising methods make them uncomfortable. Hospitals are traditionally very peer-aware (like NHS charities!). They constantly watch what other hospitals are doing, and evaluating themselves against each other. This can play to our advantage when trying to get traction for change

The first steps to increase visibility are:

1. Present an unassailable case to your Trustees; show them that increasing visibility in your hospital is a low cost, high return, highly effective and a robust business strategy to increasing your charity’s income. This is your low hanging fruit!
2. Ask your Chair to invite your hospital’s CEO and/or Chair to a meeting where together you can present this case to them. If your Chair can’t go with you, take an external expert who’s done this before. See: article about the Concept of Social Proof
3. Ensure your presentation includes statistics and case studies from other hospitals demonstrating why this is the single most important thing you should be doing. Hospitals say ‘YES’ to new ideas when others have done it before them (remember they are risk-averse). This single technique helped me to install bright yellow fundraising hubs in the hospital. I had been trying to do this for 10 years!
4. Present an action plan which they can say ‘YES’ to. Make it easy to action and easy to deliver and you’ll walk away elated!

To raise more money, every single NHS hospital charity must focus on visibility