Randy Schoenborn understands the importance of rural healthcare all too well. 

“I grew up in Mahnomen (Minnesota), and my dad, many years ago, had a heart attack,” says Schoenborn, who serves as the executive director of RiverView Foundation in Crookston, Minnesota. “And they got him to the Mahnomen hospital and airlifted him to Fargo. But if a hospital wouldn’t have been there, my dad wouldn’t have made it. He would’ve died because it was a widowmaker.”

This is a daily reality for people in rural areas across the region, he says — balancing the desire to remain in the small towns they live and work in with having access to essential, and often life-saving, medical services.

“That’s what RiverView is to the surrounding communities, and it’s why we have a brand-new hospital,” says Schoenborn, referring to the $51 million, 81,000-square-foot RiverView Health facility that was completed in 2020. “People believe in having healthcare close to home. People in Fertile, Beltrami, Climax, Maple Lake, they want to have healthcare within 30 miles of them.”

A passion for rural healthcare is one of the reasons why, six years ago, he accepted his current position leading the foundation arm of RiverView Health. 

A small but mighty facility, RiverView sees nearly 35,000 patient appointments each year and offers a range of services that rivals those in a major metropolitan area. From emergency services to dermatology to a birthing center, RiverView is a true one-stop shop for the people of northwest Minnesota. 

And it’s Schoenborn’s job to ensure that dollars keep flowing into the hospital, to both enhance current medical services and invest in new ones.

“Our lead gift on Giving Hearts Day this year was from a donor who had had positive experiences with RiverView in the past,” says Schoenborn, adding that RiverView recently added a new dyslexia-screening program. “This guy actually just popped into my office one day, didn’t even set up an appointment. And he sat down, told me about the wonderful service they’d received, and wanted to know what he could help fund.

“He was interested in expanding our physical therapy services, and the reason he gave was because of how much the therapy he had received at RiverView had improved his life.”

While he’s been in nonprofit fundraising since 1999 — first at Sacred Heart Catholic School in East Grand Forks, Minnesota, and now with RiverView — Schoenborn says he first honed his development skills in his previous career in menswear.

“You build relationships and build friendships,” he says. “It’s about knowing the customer and knowing what you can show them. Our largest customer would spend between $5,000-$6,000 per year, and you could show him certain things that you might not show another customer because of the price. And then there might be someone else who would come in who I would never show a $75 tie to. They would probably be insulted, even if they had the means.”

What he learned was that, like customers, no two donors are the same.

“Development is a very personal, one-on-one line of work,” he says. “Donors give in so many different ways, and it’s about getting them to trust that you will follow their wishes and respect what’s close to their heart. There are, for example, donors who don’t want their name put on anything. They say, ‘That’s not why we’re giving.’ And it’s not because we don’t want to put their name on a donor wall. It’s because they choose not to have it there.

“When you listen to people and make notes about things they are — and things they’re not — interested in, then when you have a project that’s similar to their interests, you can go back and say, ‘Hey, I remember we talked about this a couple months ago and that you’d shown an interest in it.’ Some people want you to send them everything and they’ll decide, and others want you to just send them certain opportunities. But it’s all a function of the knowledge that you gain from the relationships.”

Whether it’s finding donors for scholarships to retain local talent, tapping into the Angel Fund to pay for a pair of shoes for a PT patient, or funding baby blankets for newborns, Schoenborn’s close relationships with donors consistently helps him find a match between cause and giver.

To many of those donors, he’s much more than just a fundraiser. He’s become a friend. 

“I left Sacred Heart nearly 20 years ago, and one of my donors from my time there ended up at a nursing home,” Schoenborn says. “And even though she wasn’t supporting RiverView, I would stop there on my way home once a week to see her. If a donor or someone close to them passes, I always try to go and pay my respects. And then follow up and see how they’re doing afterward.”

Donors notice when you make the extra effort, he says, whether it’s picking up a donation in-person, wishing them happy birthday, or just checking in for no reason at all. 

While Schoenborn believes you should show gratitude and treat every donor with respect — regardless of what you think they can do for you — there are also reasons it just makes good business sense.

As RiverView has developed its small army of friends and ambassadors, the results have followed.

Their Giving Hearts Day total went up nearly 60 percent this year, and they had their best year since 2020 — when they were in the midst of a capital campaign to build the new hospital. GHD, which accounts for about half of RiverView Foundation’s annual budget, has become something of a holiday in the Crookston area, according to Schoenborn.

“We have donors who ask very early in the year: ‘When’s Giving Hearts Day? What’s it going to support this year?’” he says. “Some people will give either way, but others, you can see in their gift if (the cause) is something that’s closer to their heart.”

The day has also become a great way to get RiverView’s own staff involved in supporting the organization. For the past couple years, Schoenborn has asked one of the doctors at RiverView to write a letter that goes out to all the other physicians, physical therapists, and occupational therapists in the organization. In it, they encourage others to join them in making a gift to support RiverView on GHD.

“Our staff have always been good donors,” he says.

They even get RiverView CEO Carrie Michalski in on the fun, as she has, for years, matched any $20 employee gift with $10 of her own. That meant that this year — thanks to an additional $20 match from a business partner, New Horizon Foods — every $20 donation from a RiverView team member turned into $50. Giving back also made staff eligible for a long list of prizes and gifts from local businesses, which Schoenborn says further added to the sense of camaraderie.

RiverView also provides every one of its employees and board members with a Giving Hearts Day shirt and turns the hospital red with banners and heart-shaped balloons. 

“We get very in the spirit,” he says.

Once Giving Hearts Day is over each year, that’s when the important work begins. 

“In development, what you do after the gift is just as important as what you do before,” Schoenborn explains. “Reporting back on gifts, giving people tours, meeting with department managers who are able to show and explain the real-life difference someone’s gift has made. People just really appreciate that. You don’t want them to say, ‘You know, we give money all the time, but we don’t know what the outcome is.’ So it’s every bit as important as the ask.”

As Schoenborn prepares for retirement in August, he doesn’t lose much sleep over whether his successor will be able to continue the momentum that he and his team have created. For years, they’ve been creating an extensive record of donor documents, giving preferences, and important notes that should make the hand-off relatively seamless.

“I try to be very diligent about putting things into (our customer-relationship manager) DonorDock,” he says. “The idea is that if I were gone tomorrow, anyone should be able to go in there, run a report, and know what they need to know about a donor — ‘I ran into so-and-so at Hugo’s. They seemed very excited about Giving Hearts Day. They like to make their gifts beforehand.’ It functions as a kind of cheat sheet for the next person.”