Dear Board,
I couldn’t have asked for a more interesting, engaging and intense start than what we have experienced so far. In my talks with all of you over the last few months I have seen a consensus in ambitious transformation of our work as a Foundation.
It is my hope and vision – and one that I hope this Board will share - that we will be a critical lever of change in creating the best health care for Waterloo Region. We will do so in an unprecedented way by leveraging philanthropy to propel change and achieve three main long-term objectives in full alignment with Grand River Hospital and our purpose:
Considerable work needs to be done if we are to achieve these objectives including the understanding strategic implications of this approach. The Board will be critical in this process and I look forward to our generative discussions. There are many issues that this memo does not address. That does not mean they are unimportant or will not be part of our future business plans. We will need to make investment, clear choices, and maintain focus. Along the way, there will be some forks in the road and we will need to ask ourselves some key questions.
These objectives require us to continue to improve and grow our relationship to the Hospital. Our shared response to COVID-19 has been an incredible accelerator of goodwill between the two organizations and we need to continue to develop our “Philanthropic Intimacy” as we go forward.
For many years I have done a bit of work consulting on the side with charities, particular in sectors I have worked in previously. All the work I do is under the Causeprofit brand. It is based on the idea that we are more than a non-profit, that we are deliberately striving to maximize profit for our cause.
I believe this kind of thinking can change the typical fundraising organization into one that is driven to innovate and act more like a startup in their market. I also make this differentiation for us because we are not the hospital. We have typically defaulted almost exclusively to hospital organizational solutions to our problems - in my experience this is almost always not the best choice. They are such a different kind of organization both in size and scope but also regulatory. We need to be a nimble organization focused on profit for both the short and long term while being mindful of the hospital’s space.
We are also coming off of our best year ever. With more than $8M cash in and more than $12M raised we are well positioned to handle the uncertainties the pandemic will bring to our business. The plans we are laying out here for the next year are designed to grow and evolve with us over the year. The building blocks that we have forged together both before COVID-19 and since have set the stage for our success.
The future is never certain. All we can do is go forward with a bold vision for a better future and align everyone to our cause. There will be risk, there will be reward, there will be opportunities and setbacks - and together we will build the best care for all of us. I’ll end with a parting question, “what does a successful 20/21 look like to you?”
Thank you for all that you do for Grand River Hospital Foundation.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/OEqrnHP6nGreFSf0_7kA2a2_ILgIE4Hp-4SYCdk3ZsEt1vLnf1q9-P--KPkYVO_t6TIBYcfypI_WuVGsiU_4D2KWQ8IYnJf7-DpJ2S2JP87e9f6Ts7mRWCbZQMk4KnB4e1uhV3YR
Paul McIntyre Royston CEO
COVID-19
The clarity and urgency which COVID-19 enabled has created a turning point for our team. It reduced the typical barriers to transformation and, with the focus on health care, propelled our initiatives far faster and farther than they would have gone in normal times. The key change to our work for the long run is that we will cultivate this level of opportunity and activity into a new normal. This focus, in fact, resembles a startup model of ‘launch and iterate’. When people become comfortable with fast execution, they quickly get better at it, make less mistakes and ensure a solid execution before launch. They also start to realize how much they are really accomplishing for themselves, the organization and the cause.