Hoag Hospital Foundation raises $5 million in six months with Kindsight

Orange County health system cuts fundraising workflow from 24 steps to 7, reclaims hundreds of hours, and builds a 12-proposal major gift pipeline, using Kindsight's Ascend CRM.

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz., July 21, 2026 /CNW/ -- Kindsight, the leader in enterprise fundraising and donor intelligence software, today announced that Hoag Hospital Foundation has raised over $5 million in the first six months of 2026 through its Grateful Patient Program, surpassing its full-year 2025 total months ahead of schedule. These strong results reflect how Hoag's fundraising team has been able to work faster and smarter with Kindsight's Ascend Fundraising CRM, including its embedded Grateful Patient solution and prospect data and analytics powered by iWave.

Since deploying the Ascend GPP module and automating its end-to-end workflow, Hoag Hospital Foundation has seen strong operational efficiency and fundraising outcomes:

• Weekly data processing time cut from 13 hours to 10–15 minutes
• Workflow steps reduced from 24 to 7, with 95% of the process now fully automated
• $5.1 million raised in the first six months of 2026, including 38 donors, 7 major gifts over $100,000, and 1 principal gift--surpassing its entire 2025 GPP revenue ahead of schedule
• A $250,000 gift locked within two months of the Ascend GPP module going live
• An active pipeline of 12 major gift proposals, ranging from $100,000 to $1 million
• 50,000 potential GPP prospects identified for future engagement

"Implementing a formal grateful patient program and automating the workflow with Kindsight's Ascend CRM has already led to major gifts. It's become a key component in how we identify and advance prospects," said Alyce De La Cruz, Executive Director of Advancement Services at Hoag Hospital Foundation.

From manual burden to fundraising engine

Before automating its Epic EMR integration, Hoag Hospital Foundation's Grateful Patient Program required 24 manual steps and up to 13 hours of staff time each week--with teams jumping between Power BI, Excel, and Dataloader just to keep data current. After integrating Epic directly into Ascend with automated daily screening through iWave, that same work now takes 10–15 minutes. The workflow didn't just improve; it was rebuilt from scratch.

Speed as a competitive advantage

Timing is everything in grateful patient fundraising. Kindsight research shows that only 25% of donors who experienced a health event received timely outreach within days or weeks of their care. By moving to automated daily data screening, Hoag can now reach patients within that critical gratitude window--rather than weeks after the moment has passed.

"What once took roughly 24 steps now takes about 7. I cannot stress enough the impact this has had on my team," said Rebekah Kurisu, Grateful Patient Program Manager at Hoag Hospital Foundation.

Batch work that previously consumed an hour can now be completed in under five minutes. With less time spent on file preparation and system workarounds, Hoag's advancement teams redirect that capacity toward strategy, qualification, and donor engagement--the work that moves gifts forward.

A platform built for scale

The results compound quickly at scale. In the first six months of 2026 alone, more than 900 records were created automatically as patients were matched to existing donors, prospects, and event attendees. Hoag also launched Kindsight's Connect portal, giving staff the ability to build new giving pages without developer support--and plans to extend self-service capabilities directly to donors later this year.

"Hoag is exactly the kind of partner that pushes the platform forward. What they've built--the automation, the Epic EMR integration, the pipeline results--is what modern healthcare fundraising infrastructure looks like at its best," says Hemant Kashyap, Chief Product Officer at Kindsight. "We built our Ascend CRM to make this possible at scale, and Hoag is proving it out."

Hoag's 2026 results are a proof point, not a ceiling. With 50,000 potential GPP prospects identified and a growing major gift pipeline, the Foundation is positioned to make this its highest-performing fundraising year on record. For health systems still running grateful patient programs on spreadsheets and manual exports, the case is plain: the infrastructure is what lets great fundraising teams execute their strategy faster. Behind every workflow step eliminated and every hour reclaimed is a donor conversation that happened sooner--and a gift that moved patient care forward.

Hoag Hospital Foundation will share its story live at KindCon, Kindsight's annual customer conference, running September 1–3. Read the full Hoag Hospital Foundation case study here.

Press contact: [email protected]

About Kindsight

Kindsight builds technology that helps fundraisers make a difference. Founded on over three decades of innovation, and trusted by over 4,500 organizations worldwide, Kindsight is the market leader in advancement and fundraising software, supporting the education, healthcare, and nonprofit sectors to achieve their goals through smarter, more connected fundraising. Natively built upon the Salesforce architecture, Kindsight's Fundraising Platform is anchored in the strength and flexibility of the Ascend CRM, powered by the trusted insights of iWave data, and unified by seamless workflows and connected data.

Kindsight helps organizations discover the right donors, inspire personal connections at scale, and grow giving year after year. With industry-leading prospect research solutions, award-winning fundraising CRMs, a dynamic constituent portal, and an AI assistant built for modern fundraising, Kindsight's product suite is truly changing the game for donor fundraising. Connect your story to donors who care about your cause--at any scale, in real time--that's the power of Kindsight. Learn more at kindsight.io.

About Hoag

Hoag is a nonprofit, regional healthcare delivery system in Orange County, California. Delivering world-class, comprehensive, personalized care, Hoag consists of 1,800 top physicians, 18 urgent care facilities, 13 health and wellness centers, and two award-winning hospitals. Hoag offers a comprehensive blend of healthcare services that includes seven institutes providing specialized services in the following areas: cancer, digestive health, heart and vascular, neurosciences, spine, women's health, and orthopedics through Hoag's affiliate, Hoag Orthopedic Institute, which consists of an orthopedic hospital and five ambulatory surgical centers. Hoag is the highest ranked hospital in Orange County by U.S. News & World Report and the only OC hospital ranked in the Top 10 in California, as well as a designated Magnet® with Distinction hospital by the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC). For more information, visit hoag.org.

About Hoag Hospital Foundation

Thanks in large part to philanthropy, Hoag has become one of the nation's finest healthcare systems, serving a diverse and growing population. The Hoag Hospital Foundation, the philanthropic arm of Hoag, is an integral partner in Hoag's vision to become a trusted and nationally recognized healthcare leader. Through the generosity of Hoag's dedicated donors, the Hoag Hospital Foundation's Boldly Hoag campaign is supporting the expansion of Hoag, starting on the Irvine campus. Scheduled to be complete in 2026, the new Hoag Hospital Irvine Sun Family Campus will provide increased access to specialized services for cancer, digestive health, and women's health for communities throughout South Orange County. For more information, visit boldlyhoag.org or hoaghospitalfoundation.org.

SOURCE Kindsight