Fundraising at scale requires leaders and partners to understand, champion and enable philanthropy. At Moorfields Eye Charity, this meant building a shared culture across the charity, Moorfields Eye Hospital and the UCL Institute of Ophthalmology that not only supports a successful campaign for the new Moorfields and UCL Centre for Eye Health (a project known as Oriel) but would continue to support ambitious and sustainable post-campaign fundraising.

The brief
After Moorfields Eye Charity worked with More Partnership to develop a programme of philanthropy workshops for senior leaders, academics and clinicians, Rachel Jones, Director of Development and Communications at Moorfields Eye Charity and CEO Robert Dufton, wanted to better understand how philanthropic culture was being experienced across the “Moorfields family” partnership and how it could be strengthened in a practical, measurable way.

Rachel said: “Alongside our capital campaign ambitions, we had always been clear that we wanted to create a step change in the role of philanthropy across the Moorfields family and embed a culture of philanthropy.

“Our ongoing philanthropy coaching programme has been, and continues to be, important in working in partnership with our colleagues at the hospital and the institute and enabling them to feel confident in their role in fundraising. But we were conscious that in order for us, and our colleagues, to know if we were being successful we needed a clear and robust way to assess our culture and understand what we could do to improve it even further.”

In 2023, Rachel approached More Partnership again. This time to carry out an in-depth culture assessment across the charity, hospital and institute, combining leadership interviews with a large-scale survey of staff, stakeholders and supporters.

Strengthening philanthropic culture at Moorfields
A More team including Tim Johnson, Rachel Hall, Thom Hipwood and Tim Wells led the work, drawing on the firm’s long track record of measuring philanthropic culture across higher education and building on work done with Guy’s & St Thomas’ charities.

“It has long been evident, particularly from our work in higher education, that a culture of philanthropy – championed by leadership and integrated across the organisation – is an important driver of performance,” explains Tim Johnson. “However, philanthropic culture can feel intangible and our role is to help organisations define it in a way that is meaningful to them – and measurable over time.”

Building on More’s Philanthropic Culture Matrix – developed originally for higher education – the More team helped Rachel define philanthropic culture for Moorfields and created a scorecard tailored to their distinctive operating environment. The scorecard provided a structured way to assess philanthropic culture through factors including visibility, leadership engagement, institutional commitment, and cross-partner integration.

“Defining philanthropic culture was critical foundational work for us,” explained Rachel Jones. “More brought perspective from across the wider philanthropy sector, but crucially they adapted it to our context, giving us a common language and something we could actively measure and track which was recognisable to us and our colleagues across the hospital and institute.”

Between June and October 2023, the team undertook 18 in-depth interviews with senior leaders across the charity, hospital and institute, as well as a survey of 1,034 stakeholders, including staff, leadership and supporters (many of whom were current or former patients).

The research surfaced both existing strengths and opportunities for action, bolstered by a strong belief across all partners in the value of a philanthropic culture and willingness to work towards it.

Practical steps to action
More turned this insight into 10 practical recommendations for how to augment the philanthropic culture across the “Moorfields’ Family”. These included:

• Strengthening integration of planning and messaging between the hospital and the charity.

• Increasing the charity’s presence in staff and patient environments.

• Providing more opportunities for hospital and institute staff to connect with donors.

Rachel said: “Rather than giving us a broad set of ambitions, More’s recommendations were practical and felt achievable and measurable. We had a clear roadmap to deepen engagement across partners and confidence in how to focus our efforts.”

An upwards trajectory
In 2026, the More team, drawing on the support of More’s data specialist Tim Wells, repeated the assessment using the same methodology. The follow-up survey received 957 responses and showed a clear shift across multiple dimensions of philanthropic culture:

• Increased visibility of the charity among both staff and supporters.

• Improved supporter experience across communications, events and stewardship.

• Stronger belief among hospital and institute staff in the charity’s mission and delivery.

• An increase in staff who felt the hospital and institute were committed to supporting and promoting the work of the charity.

• A 21% rise in leaders from the hospital and the institute reporting strong familiarity with, and understanding of, the charity’s work.

“By 2026, more than 9 out of 10 leaders viewed the charity’s role as vital and scores across all measures of philanthropic culture had risen,” explains Tim Wells. “Using a consistent framework allowed us to track this change in a meaningful way.”

Impact
For Rachel and her team, the work has given her confidence in where to focus future efforts.

“The findings helped us understand where we’ve made progress and focus on where to concentrate next. Awareness has improved, but the bigger opportunity now is growing even further the confidence of stakeholders to actively champion the charity. This is particularly exciting as we look to move to the Moorfields and UCL Centre for Eye Health next year where philanthropy will visibly be recognised.”

Alongside this comprehensive strengthening of philanthropic culture, Moorfields Eye Charity has seen a strong upward trend in income. With significant progress towards the £100m target, the campaign is on track to deliver a world-leading centre for eye health – supporting breakthroughs in research and treatment for people facing sight loss across the UK and the world.

“We are always incredibly appreciative of the insight, expertise and guidance of the team at More. Working in true partnership to understand and advance the culture of philanthropy at Moorfields with a clear roadmap which is both ambitious but achievable. We’re excited to build on, and embed this, even further particularly with our move to the Moorfields and UCL Centre for Eye Health next year.”

To find out more about the bespoke support we could provide your organisation, contact us on info@morepartnership.com or 01382 224730.