Sharp HealthCare Foundation Grows Doctors’ Day Giving by 33%
Sharp HealthCare Foundation wanted Doctors’ Day to be a moment for grateful patients and donors to thank the physicians who cared for them. Doctors’ Day 2026 was their first campaign on Engaging Networks, and it had to run for three foundations at once: Sharp HealthCare, Grossmont Hospital Foundation and Coronado Hospital Foundation. Each foundation has its own voice, its own audience, and its own results.
Project Highlights
+33%
DOLLARS RAISED
Year-over-year growth on their first campaign on Engaging Networks.
1,752
GIFTS
Up from 1,272 the year before, an increase of 480 gifts.
0.97%
CLICK-THROUGH RATE
Against an M+R healthcare benchmark of 0.52%.
0.09%
RESPONSE RATE
More than double the 0.04% benchmark.
2x
LETTER-STYLE RESPONSE
Personal letter emails drove nearly double the response of campaign-style sends.
2%
FROM ABANDONED CART
Of total campaign revenue came from 14 follow-up sends.
Our Solution
Nine emails per foundation, two tracks each
We planned nine emails per location leading up to Doctors’ Day, with most split into a donor track and an acquisition track. Across three brands, that came to 87 sends, all built from the same shared template.
Copy about the donor’s own hospital
Conditional content swapped in location-specific copy, so a Chula Vista donor read about “the Sharp Chula Vista Medical Center family.” Each foundation’s leader signed its own sends.
A personal letter alongside bold campaign creative
Most emails used bold campaign creative. Emails 2 and 4 switched to a personal letter from a Sharp physician, sharing what this recognition meant to him. These messages outperformed the rest of the campaign.
A clear deadline with a physical reward
Donors who gave by March 15 had a recognition pin sent to their doctor in time for Doctors’ Day. Ask levels of $25, $50 and $100 lowered the barrier to give without capping what donors could choose.
Urgency on the closing sends
We layered “last chance” messaging and countdowns onto the final emails. Email 8 carried a six-hour countdown and drew 295 clicks, the most of the campaign.
A custom abandoned cart for every email
Before Engaging Networks offered abandoned cart natively, we built a follow-up for each email. It went to everyone who clicked Donate, minus suppressed contacts and anyone who had already given online or offline to the campaign.
The Results
We were able to help Sharp HealthCare Foundation grow Doctors’ Day giving by 33% by running a segmented, personalized email campaign across all three of its foundations.
The campaign brought in 1,752 gifts, up from 1,272 the year before. Click-through and response rates both came in well above the M+R healthcare benchmarks.
Email 4, the last push before the March 15 pin deadline, was the standout. It hit a 3.14% click-through rate and a 0.175% response rate, and brought in 110 gifts from one send. The abandoned cart follow-ups added 2% of total campaign revenue, more than Email 9 raised on its own.
FAQ
We built it as a marketing automation. It pulled everyone who clicked Donate from an email, then removed suppressed contacts and anyone who had already given to the campaign online or offline. We still recommend running this alongside the native feature.
It was a lot, but it worked. Because every email was built from one shared template with foundation-specific blocks, versioning each send per brand stayed manageable.
Letters work well when you have a credible, personal voice, like a long-serving physician. In this campaign, letter-style emails drove nearly double the response of campaign-style sends, so mixing both is worth testing.
Donors give to the hospital that cared for them. Swapping in their own hospital’s name and copy kept every email feeling local, even though one team ran all three campaigns.
Are You Planning for Doctors’ Day?
Is your Doctors’ Day campaign one generic email to everyone? We can help you build a campaign that speaks to each donor’s own hospital and follows up with the ones who almost gave.
Want to Check Out Some More?
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How Sharp HealthCare Foundation Runs Three Foundations From One Engaging Networks Account
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