Interview Story - Accomplishment

When I was a Senior Director at the American Heart Association, I became director of the Heart Ball Campaign. We were tasked with large annual goals and 20% growth over the prior year’s goals.

The Heart Ball campaign raises support for the mission through corporate sponsorships and major gifts. Each year the Heart Ball honors 2 individuals, a corporate leader, and a physician.

There is a Heart Ball Executive Leadership Team – a fundraising committee of about 25 people who were tasked with helping us – the staff – raise the money. There is also a Chairperson that is usually personally connected to the honoree.

So in this particular year, our goal was 2 million dollars. The Staff had identified and secured about $300,000. Committee members were committed to raising $50,000 each from their personal and business networks, including getting commitments from their own companies.

That left a $450,000 balance.

Up to that point, on a good year, one Chairperson was able to raise $225,000.

Our Chairman, Paul, worked for the honoree as the #2 in the company and was a long-time employee. He was committed to helping us raise more than $225,000, and making it a great year for Heart Ball and a great year to celebrate his boss, who had never been honored by anyone before.

Paul and I began to work together on a strategy that started about 18 months before the Gala. I started by getting Paul – on the fundraising committee the year before so he could see what it was going to be like the next year when he was leading the committee.

We decided to start fundraising by getting some of his company vendors involved in the Heart Ball the year before – to warm them up, to engage them in the mission, to show them how great the event was and how we could potentially showcase their company with their sponsorship. The early engagement was the key here.

That year Paul was successful in bringing in some sponsors whom he knew would be on board for the next year. They were all impressed with the mission-driven night as well as the wonderful black-tie Gala.

The following year, when Paul became Chairman, we developed a more complex strategic Business Partner Campaign. Paul recruited help from the leaders in his company who headed important departments like legal, IT, purchasing, real estate, supplies, construction, etc. Each of those individuals developed lists of vendors (people they spend money with) that they would approach to sponsor the event that was going to honor Paul’s boss, George. Their company had recently expanded its geographic footprint nationally and they had vendors – coast to coast. George, who was the CEO of the company for decades, was beloved in the industry.

Over the course of 6-8 months, I worked closely with Paul and his company leadership team and provided them with sample letters/language and collateral to help them solicit and follow up with these vendors/business partners. I developed detailed prospect spreadsheets, benchmarks, timelines, and strategies for these busy Executive volunteers. Once the vendor said yes, they were handed off to me to close the deal and sign their pledge forms.

I met with this team weekly to go over their progress. If they couldn’t make the meeting, I met with them separately, keeping them accountable and on target. A fine line when working with an executive volunteer, but they really appreciated the structure and the deadlines – it kept them motivated and moving. They actually enjoyed the competition amongst their colleagues. They could see who was getting who involved and at what $ level.

In the end, this team approached 80 companies. Out of that, 75 companies said yes to sponsorship.

This Business Partner Campaign raised over $950,000. This was incredible and unprecedented anywhere in the American Heart Association. The bosses were thrilled.

The event was a huge success. The Gala, was the best party we had ever thrown because of the energy and the excitement in the room. George, Paul, the company Executives, and the vendors all had a great time.

This one campaign put us over the goal, and put the Philadelphia Heart Ball on the map amongst our national peers, and set us on a new trajectory of transformational growth.

This created momentum and greater expectations in the following campaign years. Fortunately, many of these companies continued to support the Gala in subsequent years, as I stewarded the relationships myself.

The Business Partner Campaign was a model for success for any fundraising initiative and I was asked repeatedly for about 2 years to present this topic at several National American Heart Association meetings across the country. This model was replicated nation-wide amongst other AHA fundraising initiatives, helping to drive more dollars to the mission.