A moment with: Danielle Amstrup

Danielle Amstrup is the Executive Director of the St. Anne Hospital Foundation [formerly Highline Medical Center Foundation] in Burien, Wash. She has been with the foundation for just over three years, managing what she proudly refers to as a “small but mighty” team.

At the University of San Diego Danielle was a communications major with a minor in nonprofit management. After a career spent fundraising for health-related organizations, her current role has her working in a hospital for the first time. Being somewhere she can feel the immediate impact of her work, Danielle says, is her favorite part of the job.

Philanthropy is….
Philanthropy is enabling people to make an impact on something that's close to their heart. At the St. Anne Hospital Foundation, through philanthropy, we allow people to make a direct impact on the health of our community, whether that's through purchasing new equipment, supporting our hardworking staff or through direct patient support.

Can you describe your role?
My role really is to be the hospital's arm into our community … to work in tandem with organizations and donors in the community to share the needs at the hospital and to secure funding to create programs that make the hospital and our patient experience better. But I’m also the community’s arm into the hospital. I'm constantly sharing stories and trying to connect the dots between where donors’ interests lie and what is needed at the hospital.

How do you see your work fulfilling the mission of CommonSpirit Health?
We are located in Southwest Seattle and our hospital serves a very unique and diverse demographic. We serve a high number of homeless patients in our extremely busy Emergency Department, while at the same time we are located close to the water and also see many wealthy patients with waterfront homes. Additionally, because of our proximity to the SeaTac airport, we also care for a high number of refugees who might be receiving health care for the very first time. There are a lot of things that are unique to our hospital because of our geographic location and patient population, but our goal and mission in the Foundation is to provide everyone with exceptional health care regardless of their ability to pay. I know that is the mission of the Franciscan system and the greater CommonSpirit system, so I think we just work together, arm-in-arm, to figure out how to best do that and care for our community.

Can you tell us a little bit about your background?
In college I had the “a-ha” moment. My dad ran a nonprofit for 30 years. I went home to surprise him for his retirement party and I heard these incredible stories from people with family members who had benefited from his services and testimonies from board members saying what an impact his career had on their lives. That was really poignant for me because I realized … okay, at the end of all of it when you're done working and you hang your hat up what is going to be most meaningful? Is it going to be a crazy amount of dollars in the bank or a more fulfilling role? I was already taking some nonprofit courses, learning about grant writing and doing a couple internships but that was the deciding moment for me that hey this is for me.

Fast forward, I've been working in the health care nonprofit space my entire career. I started with the National Multiple Sclerosis Society and then I moved to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. I was there for three or four years and then I went to the American Heart Association and now I'm here.

Is there a donor story that stands out to you?
A year into my time with the foundation, we ran a campaign called the Heart of Our Community. We sold fiberglass hearts and businesses bought them and could decorate them and community members could donate at the businesses locations. We took them on a road show to some of the art walks in the summer. It was just me with these big hearts at one event in this interesting eclectic neighborhood. People were coming by, taking candy off the table and would say “I don't have cash” or “If you have a website, I could visit…” but I had an interaction with a man who was carrying everything he owned on his back. He took a piece of candy and he said, “What are you doing?” I said we were raising for money for [at the time] Highline Medical Center. He pulled a quarter out of his pocket, put it in the heart and said “I really like that hospital. I'm treated like a human being there and everybody has been really nice to me. There are some hospitals that haven't been. I feel like a human when I go there and I know I'm not the easiest patient, but never have I been turned away.”

I think that that was probably one of the most impactful moments of my fundraising career because certainly you need those large gifts to fund your mission, but at the end of the day, it's your community and if somebody with nothing can give something because they have been touched by your hospital … that’s pretty impactful.

What is something that might surprise other people about you?
I am a bit of a fisherwoman. My husband and I have a boat and we go crabbing and squidding and fishing in the Puget Sound. We take full advantage of the Sound and all that it has to offer. We make our own calamari and our own crab cakes, although we are purists so we do like just having the crab on its own!

What does relaxation look like to you?
I have a one year old, so I don't get to relax too often. She's running all around everywhere. But I have a pretty large family and extensive friend network and so for me in normal times relaxation would look like spending time with friends and family traveling.