Best Practices

Rallying Financial Support Behind Change

The Challenge:

To position change as positive and beneficial for donor support and employee and consumer buy in.

The Best Practice:

Rallying financial support behind change.
With change can come questions, concerns, comments and discussions. Without the financial backing, some projects may never come to fruition. Through careful strategic positioning and planning, and advanced communication, changes can provide the opportunity to engage donors, employees and consumers in financially rewarding ways.

Our Recommendation in Action:

In the case of Horn Memorial Hospital, Anderson Partners developed a strategic plan to announce their conversion from a general hospital to critical access, which meant reducing beds and services. Our communications highlighted the benefits and moved consumers past any objections. At the same time, a private donor launched a large challenge grant to raise funds for expansions and for the first time, the community was embarking on debt. We identified and presented the critical access change to key community personnel for support and understanding. Once these key community personnel were on board, the announcement to the public was perceived as a necessity. We also created a fundraising campaign, based on the hospital’s vision, and incorporated the sale of municipal bonds to raise money. Both fundraising efforts were successful in supporting the hospital’s change.

Our Approach to Best Practices:

Anderson Partners routinely highlights the opportunities for our clients by researching, developing and analyzing best practices. Each year, we review healthcare and medical marketing communications industry-wide—trade pubs, online activity, national trends, trade shows, published and syndicated research reports and more.