Bill Klaproth (host): This is Today in Nursing Leadership, a podcast from the American Organization for Nursing Leadership.

I'm Bill Klaproth, and with me today is Marisa Streelman and Beth Dochinger, as we talk about from Vision to Action, a Collaboration Between Nurse Executive Leadership and Philanthropy. Marisa and Beth, welcome.

Marisa Streelman, DNP, RN, CMSRN, NE-BC: Thank you, Bill. It's great to be here.

Host: Yeah. Thank you for being here.

Beth Dochinger, CFRE: Thank you, Bill for inviting us here today.

Bill Klaproth (host): Yeah, thank you Beth. It's great to talk with both of you. So let's jump into this as we talk about this relationship between nurse executive leadership in philanthropy. Why is this important, Beth? Why do we need to pay attention to this?

Beth Dochinger, CFRE: Well, for me, as a development professional who's been in fundraising for over 30 years, I realized very quickly that there's opportunity between and commonalities and values that are shared between nursing and philanthropy.

Philanthropy's meaning is the desire for the welfare of others and humanity and nursing aligns similarly with those values. And so, we had this opportunity to work with nurses to advance their practice, and ultimately that impacts patient care.

Host: Wow, that's really interesting. So this is a new one for me, but I think this is a really a fascinating topic. So now that we know this, Marisa, how did you go about addressing this issue?

Marisa Streelman, DNP, RN, CMSRN, NE-BC: Well, I think one of the first steps that in the chief nurse executive office that was worked on was Beth, with the development office, really creating a partnership with our chief nurse executive, Nancy May at the time, and really working on the nursing priorities and setting those up and really establishing what those were.

So then from the development office standpoint, they could go out and say, here are really the key pieces that we want to bring in for our donors and for our funds to help nursing move forward in that way. And I think once we had that baseline started, then we were able to develop a structure of kind of a giving structure, if you will, with our nursing philanthropy advisory committee.

And we got that put in place. And then we did education for our clinical nurse leaders and our nursing staff as well. And so that really put the wheels in motion with getting that developed.

Host: So it's important to have that education and communication structure in place first before launching into this. Any thoughts on that question Beth? Did you want to add anything?

Beth Dochinger, CFRE: Well, what was so amazing is that the nurses quickly understood what was involved in building a culture of philanthropy. They connect the dots very easily. And they're also very close to the patient. You know, Bill, they're the most trusted professional and the advocate for the patient.

So, they understand quickly about the needs to support patients and the really, the opportunity here was to invest in our nurses so that they had an opportunity to learn new skills, new technology, support their wellness that then, enabled them to be more supportive of the healthcare.

Host: And this fundraising then would provide support for those programs or those types of initiatives. So that's why it's important to raise money to bring these different things to the table for nursing.

Beth Dochinger, CFRE: And to be clear, this is for the clinical nurses in the hospital. It's not the school of nursing, which is also very important, has philanthropy that's more focused on training. But these, this is, this funding is for the clinical nurses, which is a new idea really. And quickly was picked up by Marisa and understanding that, yeah.

Marisa Streelman, DNP, RN, CMSRN, NE-BC: It was definitely new for me having been a nurse leader for a number of years now, but stepping into this new role with working with philanthropy. It was something new that I hadn't really experienced, having gift funds that we could use for yeah, professional development, for education, for nursing wellness at a system level was something that was new to me. And so, and it was something that at other organizations I worked at, was just not in the forefront of the clinical nurse leaders or the bedside nurses, really, they're thinking on the day-to-day basis. So this was really a good example of where leaders need to be educated on how this philanthropic efforts can really move the dial forward on their nursing priorities within their department.

Host: And it sounds like this isn't happening in a lot of health systems. Would that be fair to say?

Marisa Streelman, DNP, RN, CMSRN, NE-BC: Not that we've seen. Beth has done some research on that.

Beth Dochinger, CFRE: Yeah, we've done some benchmarking. You know, patients, when they're cared for at the hospital, are grateful for the care. It's really part of their healing process. So what they'll do is they'll say to a nurse, thank you, or to a team, thank you for the care, and this is the opportunity that a nurse can say in addition to thank you for sharing that with us.

And then the patient is expressing gratitude. It's part of their healing process. So really it's an opportunity for then the nurse to say if you're interested in supporting our initiatives, here's how you might do that. I'll put you in touch with Beth or development professional that could help move this forward. You want to share the example of when you were a nurse manager?

Marisa Streelman, DNP, RN, CMSRN, NE-BC: Well, right, so I was a nurse manager for about 12 years. And so there were many times when a patient or a family member would say, well, what can I do for the nurses? I want to give back to the nurse. And so I would say, well, they like pizza um, they like donuts.

You know, you're trying to rack your brain. Right? Like, and you're like, because you can't, they can't get money, right? There's no gift cards can be given. And there's all these red tape around those pieces since you're trying to tiptoe around the topic kind of, right?

And um, I had an aha moment, I dunno, about six months ago, where I said. I said, you know, it would've been so nice if I could have said to those patients at that time here is information about a fund that you could put money towards, if you wanted to support nurses. Here's information of the development officer that you can talk to.

Host: Great idea.

Marisa Streelman, DNP, RN, CMSRN, NE-BC: And instead of spending a hundred dollars on pizza for everyone here, they could put a hundred dollars toward that gift fund that could help that nurse reach those goals, their professional development goals.

Host: I love that because that is the perfect time to make the ask too, as well, right? Grateful patients. Thank you. You took care of me. You got me through this. How can I help you? Hey, you can buy some pizza, right? You can get donuts. Having to say, listen, we've got a fund. You can donate money to our fund, which will help with education and tools and learning and mental health. Things like that.

Really important. Really good. Yeah. Okay. So how do we get there then? How do you start a program like this? We've already determined this program is needed, not taken advantage of by a lot of health systems. How does someone get started? Beth, how do we do this?

Beth Dochinger, CFRE: Well, I work at Michigan Medicine and we have a development office that said why don't you take a look at this? But really it's a partnership between the department of nursing and development. And so, it's an invitation for a conversation to begin to see if there's opportunities for partnering. We worked with Dr. Nancy May, as Marissa said earlier, who was the chief nurse executive at the time, and really had a vision for this and the opportunity to advance this and support it.

And so we did a lot of benchmarking with various organizations. Nancy put me in touch with other CNEs to see what was going on. And we quickly identified what our funding needs are for nursing professional development, wellness, research and innovation and nursing excellence. And so, what we did as well as we identified some funds that already existed at Michigan Medicine for nursing, and we found them all over the hospital.

And so initially we had 30 funds that were set up, but no one really knew where they were and had looked at how we could implement them. And then we found another 30 funds. So we have 60 funds now. And we've grown the program from 67 donors to over 3000 donors.

Host: Oh my gosh. Yeah. Well, knowing that those funds are there and already created, now, it's easier to make the ask.

Beth Dochinger, CFRE: Exactly. And the importance of thanking donors who have given. So we've sent reports, impact reports we call them, and how we've expended the money and how grateful we are. And Marissa learned that too, was that when,

Marisa Streelman, DNP, RN, CMSRN, NE-BC: you have to actually spend money out of the fund and then in order to get money back, you know?

Host: So there are rules you have to, right? Yeah.

Marisa Streelman, DNP, RN, CMSRN, NE-BC: Well I, you know, it's kind of that thing where you're told time and time again, you have to save, save, save, right? And so, there's sometimes this mentality in nursing and nursing leadership that you, don't want to spend the money. Right. But when it comes to gift funds, that's reverse.

You want to spend the money, right. Tell the donor how the money was spent and then guess what? They give more money. Right? It's amazing. And we've seen it time and time again in the last few years that we've been doing this. So, but that was something new that I had to learn as well. Coming again from a different angle and then from a different perspective. So.

Host: They feel good that their money is going to something worthwhile and correct. My money is making a difference. Wow. Look at what they've done with mine and others donations. I want to keep this feeling going. I'm going to, I want to keep contributing.

Marisa Streelman, DNP, RN, CMSRN, NE-BC: Correct. And even getting others to contribute other than their friends and family as well.

Host: Yeah. This is uh, I really love this. I think this is a great idea. So, would it be a good idea Beth and Marisa, check with your hospital or healthcare system. They might have funds already developed or they might have something. Oh yeah. You could put money into this. It might already be established.

Marisa Streelman, DNP, RN, CMSRN, NE-BC: It might already be established. Well, Beth was just mentioning the development office. Some hospitals don't have a development office, so if you're looking to get started, there are some other opportunities or ways to do that. There are different organizations and yeah, there might, you might have a foundation that would be something you could reach out to.

And then otherwise you can just look into starting a gift fund in your unit or within the Department of Nursing. And that could just be somewhere to get started. Cause there are smaller hospitals and smaller organizations that might not have the resources that the University of Michigan might have.

Beth Dochinger, CFRE: Well, and Marisa, one of the nice opportunities that's coming up right now is Nurses Week, which is in May. It's a whole week to celebrate nursing. So you could just begin it that way, during nurses week. We have a Nurses Week campaign that's very successful and it gives a grateful patient an opportunity to thank a nurse, to send a note in to the actual nurse that we disseminate those notes.

We've gotten almost 500 notes a year where people are so grateful for their nurse and that's shared with the nurse. That's a gift. And then they can also make a gift toward this Nursing at Michigan Fund that supports all nurses across the hospital.

Host: Yeah, I think that's really good. And every hospital has some type of a legal team. I suppose if you went to your legal team and said we want to establish a fund. How do we do this? And they would say, okay, here's what you have to do.

Marisa Streelman, DNP, RN, CMSRN, NE-BC: Right.

Host: You have to make this legal and it's gotta work through this and it's gotta be accredited, blah, blah, blah. Yeah. Right. So that would be another way to start. So what have you learned through this? What are your key takeaways, each of you? Marisa let me start with you. What has stuck out for you in this?

Marisa Streelman, DNP, RN, CMSRN, NE-BC: So some of the key takeaways have been that there's money out there. Donors want to give. It's part of their healing, as Beth mentioned. And that we need to be open and receptive to that.

And as a nurse, as a nurse leader, sometimes that conversation has been, not always easy to have, with patients and or with families. And so how do we open that door and how do we start communicating about gratitude? And about donations and things like that and, fundraising. And make that part of the nursing journey really, or that patient's journey and having nursing part of that.

Host: Yeah, that makes sense. Beth, how about you? Key takeaways?

Beth Dochinger, CFRE: Well, what I tell Marisa is that, when a patient comes through a hospital, they have that patient journey, and it can begin at the emergency department, it could begin and then goes on to the central part of the hospital, internal medicine, and it ends up in cardiovascular surgery.

And so the nurses have been there all along on that journey. And I just believe that there's this opportunity to invest in the nurses as well because they're on the front line and they have just impacted that patient's journey as much as any other. And so, there's that opportunity to have that full conversation about engaging with that patient's journey is and investing in the nurses.

Host: Yeah. And Beth, can you talk about the results or the successes so far at the University of Michigan? What have you raised? Tell us.

Beth Dochinger, CFRE: Well, we've raised over $3 million for the nurses.

Host: Amazing.

Beth Dochinger, CFRE: But it's actually foundational work that takes years to build those relationships. And so we're just beginning. Dr. Kim Eagle, who's the head of the cardiovascular center of the Franco Cardiovascular Center calls it the New Frontier. And uh, he's a faculty champion and he believes in the nurses. So finding those champions is really important.

Host: And you said you've grown this from, I, I didn't write it down. How many donors to something now? 3006. Uh,

Beth Dochinger, CFRE: 67 donors to over 3000?

Marisa Streelman, DNP, RN, CMSRN, NE-BC: Yes. In the last few years.

Host: Amazing. I mean, that those are great results, but the money you've raised is and I would imagine the programs you've been able to sponsor because of this have really been a benefit to the nursing department?

Marisa Streelman, DNP, RN, CMSRN, NE-BC: Yeah. We've been able to fund nurses to go to conferences, AONL, Magnet, as well as individual conferences. Those were group conferences. We got to send a group of leaders to each of those leadership conferences. But we also send individual nurses to conferences that they're presenting at. We sponsor the Michigan Medicine poster day where all the nurse units and areas get to represent what they're doing and they have going on.

Beth Dochinger, CFRE: We've invested in new ideas um, uh,

Marisa Streelman, DNP, RN, CMSRN, NE-BC: Innovation award that was given. Yep. And creating that innovation, bringing it to life with our bioengineering department and funding that. So lots of funding going all the way around.

Host: It's things you wish you, God, I wish if we had some money we could do this. Yes. Oh, now we do. Now we can do some of those things.

Marisa Streelman, DNP, RN, CMSRN, NE-BC: Yes. And we have a whole program where they submit their requests and it goes through a whole process.

Host: Wow. This has been amazing. Well, thank you both for your time today. I've enjoyed speaking with both of you. Before you wrap up, final thoughts, Marisa, how about you?

Marisa Streelman, DNP, RN, CMSRN, NE-BC: This has just been an incredible journey and I will say I learned a lot as a nurse. Never thought I would learn about philanthropy. And what that was meant to be and how it could be used to benefit our nursing community. But it is there, it is out there. And nurses, we just need to bring a chair to the table. And uh, get our voice heard around this topic. So that's my takeaway.

Host: Yeah. Well, thank you for bringing it and being on this podcast. You certainly are building that awareness. For sure. And Beth, final thoughts from you?

Beth Dochinger, CFRE: Well, Marissa and I realized that only 1% of Philanthropy is going towards nursing over 300 billion. So it's time for the nurses.

Host: It's time for the nurses. I like that. Boom. It's time for the nurses. Only 1%. Holy cow. Well, this is money well spent. As, somebody that wants to give money, how would you not want to give money to nurses who do so much great work for us and really don't get recognized as much as they should.

Marisa Streelman, DNP, RN, CMSRN, NE-BC: And they spend the most amount of time with the patients.

Host: Yes. So true. Yeah. Wow. Well, this has been great, Marisa and Beth, thank you again.

Beth Dochinger, CFRE: Thank you.

Marisa Streelman, DNP, RN, CMSRN, NE-BC: Thank you. Appreciate it.

Host: You bet. Once again, that is Marisa Streelman and Beth Dochinger. And for more information, please visit aonl.org. And if you found this podcast helpful, please share it on your social channels and check out the full podcast library for topics of interest to you. This is Today in Nursing Leadership.

Thanks for listening.