AHP Connect Articles

AHP Connect Member Profile - Jonathan McCoy

Jonathan McCoy
Director of Annual Giving
INTEGRIS Foundation
Oklahoma City, OK

AHP member since 2011




Jonathan McCoy is currently serving as director of annual giving for INTEGRIS Foundation in Oklahoma City, where he has successfully led and grown the employee giving campaign from fewer than 300 donors to now more than 3,000 annually. His passion for design in the nonprofit space spans more than a decade of working alongside some of the most successful nonprofit organizations in our region. 

What inspired you to begin your career in health care philanthropy?

I’ve always had a passion for the nonprofit space. Right out of college, I worked for my alma mater, Oklahoma State University. I got an internship at their foundation and worked in the marketing department. My formal degree is in graphic design, so I’ve always had this passion for how design can influence and make a difference in people’s lives. Through that experience, I first became aware of the world of development. I knew I wanted to do something to leverage design with the power of philanthropy’s impact. The ability to touch people’s lives in a deep way was really motivating.

So to cross two story lines, my wife and I decided to go on an international mission work trip for a year. I had the difficult task of going up to my boss, at a job that I loved, and saying, “I love my job and I love being in development, but we really feel called to go do this.” She was really supportive and happened to be Becky Endicott, who’s co-hosting an AHP webinar with me on September 19. Becky looked across the table at me and said, “You know, as your boss, I’m really disappointed you’re leaving. But as your friend, I can see this is the right next step for you and your wife.”

We ended up living in Southeast Asia for a year. When we came back, I knew I wanted to focus on nonprofit work. I was able to go back to my job at OSU and experience crafting and launching our state’s first billion dollar fundraising campaign. That experience solidified that I wanted to invest my life in helping nonprofits better tell their story to achieve remarkable things. A couple years later, a friend of ours had just joined INTEGRIS in Oklahoma City and invited us to an opportunity there. To be honest, I wasn’t necessarily drawn to the health care at first. I was more drawn to the idea of a smaller development shop that needed to be rethought and reimagined. They were in a difficult place, and they needed some new energy and ideas. I was really captivated by the opportunity that we could have a lasting imprint on that transformation. So Becky and I came to INTEGRIS at the same time — that was seven years ago.

It's funny looking back now because I always loved the idea of what we were doing but it never really intersected my life personally… yet. But now several years later, I’ve experienced how health care is so all encompassing as it intersects everyone’s life at some point, and that depth and meaning of how it connects to you is really powerful. Health care brings out some of the most exhilarating and happy moments and some of the most challenging and hard times of life in one place — a person’s life and their family’s legacy is what it’s all about.

On the INTEGRIS website, you list mental health and fertility as your passions. Where do those passions stem from and how do you incorporate those passions into your work?

I never would have imagined before I started in health care that I would ever give a presentation to a room full of people and saying, “My passion is mental health,” or “My passion is fertility.” They both have stigma attached to them. Because of the experiences and opportunities I’ve had here at INTEGRIS, I’m proud to say those are my passions.

My passion for mental health came during just the second week on the job. We were asked to meet with members of the team who work at a facility called INTEGRIS Mental Health Spencer. I didn’t know what to expect, but walking through the doors, I was hit with the reality and severity of the need in our community. The children treated here have just had the most horrific circumstances thrown at them, and they’re trying to step out of that. I left that facility changed. I went back to my office, found the payroll deduction form and started my first gift to INTEGRIS.

About two years ago, the community approached INTEGRIS because we did not have a fully integrated addiction treatment center in Oklahoma. So INTEGRIS partnered with these members of the community, and that is the most significant campaign INTEGRIS has ever taken on. Our team is in the middle of that campaign right now. It’s a $46 million effort — $35 million of that being private philanthropy. Mental health [including addiction issues] has become one of the core things that we talk about, and one of the things that our foundation is now known for in the community. We want to plow straight into the stigma. Our team is really passionate about changing the stigma and providing hope to families in our community.

My passion for fertility stems from my wife and I’s personal journey growing our own family. We are so grateful to now have two sets of twins ages 6 and 3. Each of our children have received every moment of their life’s health care at an INTEGRIS facility. It’s pretty powerful to think what an impact this place has had on our family and thousands of others in our community.

What other campaigns are you currently working on?

We are starting to get into our busy season with our end-of-year strategy in full swing and planning efforts having commenced for our employee giving campaign. Employee giving has become such a professional passion of mine because of what it can do on a philosophical level at your hospital. It’s not just about the dollars raised or about the participation. There’s something about how it changes the engagement of an employee when they actively participate in philanthropy. So that’s a huge part of my team’s focus throughout the year.

We’re also just a few days away from our annual golf tournament — benefiting the INTEGRIS Bennett Fertility Institute this year.

What can attendees expect from your webinar, “Taking Your Employee Giving Campaign to the Next Level,” with Becky Endicott?

As I mentioned, we believe there’s incredible power in employee giving because of what it does in terms of personal engagement in the mission, and how that creates a springboard for taking philanthropy forward to the community. When Becky and I came to INTEGRIS, our organization was in a difficult place. We found that among the organization’s 9,000 employees, only 310 had a philanthropic gift back to the hospital. 310. The majority of employees didn’t even realize we were a not-for-profit system.

From a philosophical level, we needed to completely shift the culture of philanthropy. So, in our webinar, Becky and I will break down our awakening — and how we built something disruptive and radically different than what had been tried before. We will share our relentless pursuit to the long game of winning employees as donors and giving them a full donor experience.

Becky and I both love talking tactics — and we’ll share many of those in depth — but we also want to share the core truths we’ve identified to make the session as transferable as possible to anyone who wants to take their employee giving to the next level. So, you can expect to hear more about our mindsets and commitments that drove our tactical decisions as we ushered an era of change in our hospital… leading to the culture of philanthropy we celebrate today with the most successful health care employee giving campaign in our state.

We went from 300 donors, and less than five years later we crossed the 3,000-donor mark. Now, one in every three employees you pass in the halls of our hospital is a $200 donor to their passion area. It’s pretty powerful to think how much philanthropy has impacted the average employee experience. When you have thousands of employees who get it, who have seen philanthropy, how much easier is it to tell our story of impact with our community?

With this incredible employee buy-in, we’re harnessing it to extend into nearly every aspect of our development operation. We are looking forward to connecting on the webinar — it should be a lot of fun!

What do you hope to accomplish within the next 10 years?

I love being a part of the health care philanthropy industry and AHP. I see my next 10 years as finding ways to more deeply serve this space and ultimately positively impact more people. My passion is to share what I’ve learned and to help equip and train other people. I’m excited for the upcoming webinar with Becky and the ability to share more in October at the 2018 AHP Annual International Conference. I hope some of our experiences can help inspire and empower fellow nonprofits to achieve success. I know by all pulling together, incredible things can happen within our organizations.