Grateful Giving Programme
Build a confident approach to patient and family philanthropy
Patients and families sometimes want to give because of the care they have received, to say thank you, honour someone important or help make better care possible for others. Grateful Giving, sometimes known as a Grateful Patient Programme, is an organisation-wide approach to recognising and responding when patients and families want to give.
It brings together leadership, fundraisers and clinicians so that generosity is handled sensitively, patients know what their options are and philanthropic relationships have the opportunity to develop. It isn't about asking clinicians to fundraise or approaching patients for money. It is about responding well when generosity is already there.
What is a Grateful Giving Programme?
When patients and families want to say thank you through giving, knowing how to respond makes all the difference. In this short film, Gemma Downham explains how Grateful Giving helps NHS staff welcome that generosity and connect people with their charity, while protecting the clinical relationship.
Grateful Giving cannot sit with the fundraising team alone.
It depends on leaders who understand and support the opportunity, clinicians who feel confident responding to patient gratitude, clear ethical and governance frameworks, and fundraisers equipped to build relationships with care.
If any of those pieces is missing, even a well-designed programme can struggle to take root.
“Everyone was raving about the training. They came away full of confidence, with a real bounce in their step. It was purposeful, carefully structured and deliberately tailored to them.”
HEAD OF FUNDRAISING, AIR AMBULANCE CHARITY
“Gemma was extremely helpful and generous with her time throughout the planning, making sure we got the most from the day.”
FUNDRAISING DIRECTOR, NHS CHARITY
See the opportunity and build the case for change
Before deciding what to build, you need a clear picture of where you are and a compelling case for why things should change. Grateful Giving Discovery combines your fundraising data, patient activity, organisational context and peer benchmarking to show how your organisation is performing, where the opportunity may lie and what could be holding you back.
Crucially, it turns that evidence into a leadership conversation. Rather than asking senior colleagues to invest in fundraising on belief alone, you have an organisation-specific assessment of the opportunity, the barriers to growth and the decisions that could make the greatest difference. The national evidence shows that investment, leadership and organisational conditions are associated with very different fundraising outcomes. Discovery helps you understand what that evidence means in the context of your own organisation.
What we explore
-
Fundraising income and performance trends
-
Income relative to patient activity
-
Comparison with an appropriate peer group
-
Leadership, clinical and organisational readiness
-
Barriers to patient and family philanthropy
-
Where leadership attention and investment could make the greatest difference
What you receive
A practical, board-ready assessment of your current position, the scale of the opportunity and the priorities that deserve attention first. It gives you an evidence-based case for change and a stronger platform for conversations with senior leaders, trustees and NHS colleagues about what could be possible and what needs to happen next.
Turn the opportunity into a programme that works in practice
There is no single Grateful Giving model that can simply be lifted from one organisation and dropped into another. Your programme needs to reflect your patients, services, culture, governance, geography and fundraising capacity. We work with leaders, fundraisers and clinicians to design an approach that is ambitious enough to make a difference and practical enough to become part of everyday working.
The work can include
-
Building the opportunity and case for change
-
Leadership and board alignment
-
Clinical listening and co-creation
-
Programme strategy and operating model
-
Governance and ethical safeguards
-
Patient relationships, stewardship and supporter journeys
-
Recognition, response and referral pathways
-
Internal and patient communications
-
Measures of success
-
Early implementation and ongoing strategic support
The result
A clear, agreed approach that gives leaders, clinicians and fundraisers confidence about why Grateful Giving matters, how it will work and what their part in it is.
Grateful Giving Education
Build understanding, confidence and adoption
For Grateful Giving to become part of the way an organisation works, people need to understand both why it matters and what it means for them.
It's not an ask. It's an introduction.
Clinicians don't need to become fundraisers. Their role is to recognise when someone wants to help, acknowledge that generosity appropriately and, where the patient wishes, introduce them to the charity. The fundraising team takes responsibility from there.
Leadership and clinical engagement
Facilitated sessions with senior leaders, trustees and clinical teams create space to explore the evidence, hear patient and clinician perspectives and discuss the ethical and practical questions surrounding patient and family philanthropy. The aim is not simply to teach people what to say. It is to build understanding, address concerns and create the leadership and clinical buy-in needed for Grateful Giving to work.
Wider staff learning
Staff across the organisation may hear a patient or family express gratitude or a wish to give. Grateful Giving staff education helps people recognise those moments and respond with confidence and care.
Grateful Giving staff education helps people understand:
-
Why patients and families choose to give
-
Why giving can be personally meaningful
-
How to recognise and acknowledge generosity
-
What can happen when an offer is unintentionally closed down
-
How to offer an appropriate next step
-
Where their responsibility ends and the charity's begins
Learning can be designed around your organisation, policies and Grateful Giving programme, helping create a consistent and confident approach across the wider workforce.
Clinician Training
What could Grateful Giving make possible for your organisation?
You may be trying to understand the opportunity, build leadership and clinical support, develop a full Grateful Giving programme or give staff the confidence to respond well. Wherever you are starting from, we can identify what is getting in the way and what a sensible next step looks like.