title: Hospital philanthropy.
abstract: It remains an open question whether hospital spending on fundraising efforts to garner philanthropy is a good use of funds. Research and industry reports provide conflicting results. We describe the accounting and data challenges in analysis of hospital philanthropy, which include measurement of donations, measurement of fundraising expenses, and finding the relationships among organizations where these cash flows occur. With these challenges, finding conflicting results is not a surprise.
authors.affiliation: Department of Health Management & Policy, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA. deans@umich.edu
authors.forename: Dean G
authors.initials: DG
authors.lastname: Smith
authors.forename: Jan P
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Clement
mesh_terms: D000066:Accounting / Q000379:methods; D002140:California; D005377:Financial Management, Hospital; D005653:Fund Raising / Q000639:trends*