Physicians can be an invaluable extension of your fundraising team—assisting in donor prospect identification, cultivation, case making, and more.

With care shifting to the outpatient setting, it's even more critical than ever to partner with clinicians to reach patients across all settings.

This toolkit outlines a 10-step process for recruiting physician partners and includes all the resources you need to execute on each strategy.

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Before you get started, use our strategic audit to understand your current state of philanthropy-physician relations and set an appropriate goal for ally and champion recruitment.

  Download the audit

Establish a high-functioning champion core

Start by identifying a core group of physician champions who will serve as leaders among their peers, and engage them as a team to maximize their impact.

• Step 1: Recruit a select group of respected physicians as champions
• Step 2: Team up champions to recruit their peers

Over-invest in highest-value allies

Use your champions to build a base of allies—those on the front lines who will think of philanthropy at the right moments to refer or cultivate a patient or suggest a funding priority. Proactively recruit those who work in strategically-aligned funding priority areas, or who serve high-potential patients.

• Step 3: Focus on a manageable number of allies to optimize returns
• Step 4: Align ally recruitment with strategic priorities
• Step 5: Evaluate providers across all care settings for ally role
• Step 6: Appeal to allies with a tailored pitch
• Step 7: Leverage allies in prospecting, priority selection, or peer engagement

Hardwire physician stewardship and impact tracking

Once recruited, you need to retain your champions and allies. Steward them just as you would donors by quantifying the impact of their "gift" and showing them data—use this to bring new partners on board, too.

• Step 8: Steward physician partners as you would donors
• Step 9: Quantify ally impact to make the case for further involvement

Build a low-maintenance pipeline of allies and champions

Don't allow other potential partners to fall through the cracks. Implement our low-maintenance partner pipeline-building strategies that encourage others to volunteer, and instill a culture of philanthropy across the organization.

• Step 10: Create systematic channels to expose physicians to philanthropy

Download the full toolkit