Rush Rounds: What’s Up, Doc?
Rush University Medical Center
Rush Rounds: What’s Up, Doc? is a donor cultivation event that creates opportunities for guests to interact with experts from Rush University Medical Center. In previous years, the event was a dinner with guests assigned to a table with one Rush expert. With our new structure, attendees curate their own experience by choosing from multiple topics during breakout sessions. The event brings donors and experts together in an intimate setting and encourages attendees to learn about more than one clinical or research area. Each breakout session begins with one or two Rush experts discussing a topic, followed by a Q&A session. What’s Up, Doc? benefits both our guests and our development staff. With a broad range of topics and an improved event flow, gift officers are able to make connections with prospects and better gauge their interests. Following last year’s event, we surveyed attendees and measured a Net Promoter Score of 100. We also surveyed our philanthropy team and built an event follow-up report through Tableau that allowed us to see the composition of event attendees and track their activity prior to and after the event.
What was the most impactful part of your award-winning entry?
The new structure provides attendees with unique access to a variety of medical experts and topics while allowing development staff to connect with prospects. By tracking attendee composition and activity following the event, we are able to measure how the event plays a role in philanthropic decisions.
What is one thing you learned from this experience?
It is important to take some risk with events and try out new approaches. Annual events can get stale for attendees and staff members alike. When trying new event formats, ask for feedback and put tools in place that will allow you to measure return on investment.
Contact
Melissa Platt, melissa_platt@rush.edu