How Intermountain Health Foundation Turned Discharged Patients Into 695 Gifts
Intermountain Health Foundation wanted to turn recently discharged patients into donors without leaning on the one thing most hospital foundations lean on, which is the care experience itself. Grateful patient programs usually thank people for their stay and ask them to give back to the department that treated them. Intermountain wanted a welcome journey that would work across every service line and every facility, and give a brand new audience a reason to care.
Project Highlights
695
GIFTS FROM THE SERIES
Across seven months of reporting, all source coded to the series.
483
GIFTS IN THE FIRST TWO MONTHS
August and September 2025, the series launch window.
47
RECURRING GIFTS
New sustainers who started with a small first gift.
8
EMAILS IN THE JOURNEY
One welcome series every discharged patient receives.
$5
ENTRY LEVEL ASK
A low barrier first gift built for a cold audience.
Our Solution
DGD handled strategy and copywriting for the full eight-email series.
Lead with the passion area, not the service line
Instead of tying the ask to the service line where someone was treated, the series centers on pediatric care at Intermountain Health Primary Children’s Hospital. Kids are a cause almost everyone understands, and pediatric care touches every other service line in the system. A patient who came through cardiology still has a reason to care about a child in the NICU.
Write for people with no connection to the hospital
Several emails say it outright: even if you have never been through the doors of Primary Children’s, you can still be part of this. That single move opens the series to the whole discharged patient file instead of the narrow slice with a strong care story.
Use a $5 ask as the front door
Three of the eight emails carry a straight $5 ask. For a cold audience getting their first message from the Foundation, $5 is an easy yes. The goal is a name in the file, not a big first gift.
Let one patient story carry the emotional weight
Miller’s story, a boy diagnosed with leukemia who is now finishing treatment, anchors the middle of the series. One specific kid does more work than any amount of general mission copy.
Close with cultivation, not another ask
The final email shifts to a personal note from a team member about the programs he cares about. People who have not given yet still get a way to raise their hand.
The Results
We were able to help Intermountain Health Foundation grow new donor acquisition by building an eight-email welcome series for recently discharged patients around a shared passion for kids.
The series produced 695 gifts across seven months of reporting, all source coded through GoFundMe Pro so every gift is directly attributable. The launch window did the heaviest lifting, with 483 gifts in August and September 2025 alone. Forty seven of those gifts were recurring, which is a strong signal for an audience meeting the Foundation for the first time at a $5 price point.
Reporting only captures gifts made directly through the series, so the real number is almost certainly higher. Anyone who received the series and later gave through a year-end or annual appeal is not counted here. Building indirect revenue tracking is the next step, along with rolling series completers into annual giving and year-end communications so those warm leads stay engaged.
FAQ
Pediatric care is almost universally understood and it intersects with every other service line in the system. Intermountain donors already have a passion for helping kids, so the series meets people where they are instead of asking them to care about the department that happened to treat them.
Pull non-donors into annual giving engagement emails and larger campaigns like year-end. People who finished the series without giving are still warm, and holiday giving appeals land naturally with that group.
For a cold audience, the first gift is about starting a relationship, not maximizing revenue. A $5 ask removes the hesitation that comes with a first message from a foundation someone has never given to, and 47 of the 695 gifts were recurring, which shows a small entry point can still lead to ongoing support. Growing gift size comes later through annual giving and year-end appeals.
Ready to Rethink Your Grateful Patient Program?
If your grateful patient emails only work for the patients with a strong care story, you are leaving most of the file on the table. We can help you find the passion area that cuts across every service line and build the journey around it.
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