Q3 Report: The Immediate Impact

Crystal Hinson Miller, president of IU Health Foundation, is a national leader in healthcare philanthropy. Here, she shares her personal reflections.

A few months ago, when IU Health launched its Pathways into Healthcare program – which pays entry-level IU Health team members while they train to become certified medical assistants – the number of people interested in signing up quickly shattered IU Health’s projections for the program.

IU Health came to IU Health Foundation and asked if we could help. And, thanks to the support of our generous donors, we could. With philanthropic funds, IU Health was able to double the number of people enrolled in the program. Now, IU Health team members across Indiana are training for new roles, furthering their careers, and helping IU Health fill the healthcare talent pipeline.

Not so long ago, this kind of quick response would have been unlikely. Healthcare philanthropy traditionally has focused on slower-moving targets, working long-term to raise money for big and tangible things: buildings, specialty departments, endowed positions, high-tech equipment, and so on, while also building endowments that could generate ongoing earnings. This approach plays a crucial role in healthcare philanthropy, but it does come with one shortcoming: It does not allow for substantive responses to pressing immediate needs or opportunities.

In recent years, we’ve seen a broadening of philanthropic interests as donors have shown greater appetites for supporting non-bricks-and-mortar campaigns and providing immediate-impact funding and unrestricted gifts. We saw this perhaps most tangibly during the pandemic when donors proactively responded to needs with unrestricted gifts of all sizes to support IU Health team members and equip them to respond to unprecedented challenges.

But this trend didn’t begin with the pandemic and certainly didn’t end there. Our donors – especially those to our unrestricted Leadership Annual Giving Society - have long made us more nimble. For example, when caregivers in west-central Indiana saw that many older Hoosiers were not getting their annual check-ups, donor gifts supported increased access to a senior wellness center. When emergency department teams ran low on clean clothes for patients who would otherwise be discharged in their own damaged and soiled clothing, we granted funds to stock clothing cupboards. When tornadoes struck eastern Indiana, we were able to move quickly to meet community recovery needs, including those of our own team members.

The list goes on, with opportunities large and small that we addressed because we have ready resources or because a donor felt compelled to make an immediate impact.

I don’t believe this new paradigm will replace the more traditional healthcare philanthropy approach. On the contrary, I’m excited that the two approaches complement each other, creating a dynamic opportunity for improving Hoosiers’ health by opening the door to more people as donors.

This is perhaps most visible today in northeast Indiana, where we have just broken ground for an IU Health hospital in Fort Wayne. Obviously, a $421 million healthcare center is not a quick response to a pressing need; IU Health’s careful financial planning is funding the hospital itself. But IU Health Foundation will offer donor support to IU Health, fueling services inside and outside hospital walls to attract and retain top healthcare professionals and support innovation in healthcare delivery in the region. All of this together ensures that IU Health’s Fort Wayne hospital is prepared to provide the best healthcare possible for residents of northeast Indiana when the doors open in 2027.

At the same time that planning is underway for the new hospital, IU Heath has used its available resources to respond to more immediate needs in Fort Wayne. For example, IU Health awarded $1 million over three years from its Community Impact Investment Fund to St. Joseph Community Health Foundation to develop the Refugee Health Collaborative in southeast Fort Wayne. The city has seen an influx of some 25,000 Burmese residents – many of whom arrived directly from refugee camps. This funding ensures that these newcomers to the US can settle in more quickly by having access to food, health services, transportation, job training and housing – all of which contribute to individual and community wellness.

By aligning these two strategies – traditional healthcare philanthropy and a more agile, targeted approach – IU Health Foundation is able to increase opportunities for impact and create meaningful improvements in Indiana healthcare, now and in the future. But...we’re only able to do that through the generosity of our partners, donors like you.

So, as always, thank you for your support, and for the trust and confidence you show by funding not only concrete healthcare resources but the less tangible – but no less essential – responses to pressing needs and opportunities. Through this two-pronged approach, you are helping IU Health and IU Health Foundation power a healthcare system that is making progress toward a healthier Indiana.