Intermountain Health
The Primary Promise Campaign
One Hospital, Six States, No Shared Story
Intermountain Health serves more than a million children across a six-state, 400,000-square-mile network anchored by one of the nation’s top pediatric institutions. But when the system prepared to launch its first-ever fundraising campaign, no shared language existed to connect a beloved community hospital in Salt Lake City to pediatric care sites from Nevada to Alaska. Foster Avenue was engaged to build the strategic and communications foundation for a $500 million campaign from the ground up.
What we faced:
- First-ever systemwide healthcare philanthropy campaign with no existing communications infrastructure
- A community icon, Primary Children’s Hospital, that needed repositioning as a regional and national force in pediatric medicine
- Nine distinct funding priorities spanning clinical care, genomic research, behavioral health, and new hospital construction
- A patient population where more than half of families travel over an hour for care, with Utah’s pediatric population projected to grow 50% by 2040
$500M
campaign goal
100K+
Children served annually
6 States
network footprint
50%
Projected Pediatric Population Growth by 2040
3,000+
Pediatric physicians & staff
Setting the Stage
The Starting Point
In 1975, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints gave its hospital assets to the community with a charge: build a model health system that provides affordable, accessible, and extraordinary care. Intermountain Health has spent five decades fulfilling that mandate. By the time the foundation began planning its first systemwide campaign, the system ranked among the most innovative and cost-effective not-for-profit health networks in the world.
But growth had outpaced the language to describe it. Under its “One Intermountain” initiative, the system had expanded from a Utah-based network into a six-state operation stretching from Nevada to Alaska. Primary Children’s Hospital remained the emotional and clinical anchor, a place so embedded in local culture that families largely knew it through Pennies by the Inch drives and the Festival of Trees. The institution’s reputation as a community hospital was an asset, but it was also a constraint: donors who thought of Primary Children’s as “their” neighborhood hospital didn’t yet see it as the hub of a region-spanning pediatric network.
Meanwhile, the challenge was accelerating. The system was building a Center for Personalized Medicine capable of sequencing a child’s entire genetic code in 48 hours. It was planning a second 468,000-square-foot children’s hospital in Lehi to meet Utah County’s surging pediatric population. Behavioral health emergencies among children entering Intermountain ERs had increased 300% in eight years. The ambition was enormous, the need was documented, and the philanthropic case had never been articulated at system scale.
Foster Avenue entered at the messaging phase of a multi-stage engagement, tasked with conducting stakeholder discovery and building the strategic communications architecture that would give this campaign a voice.
The Strategic Work
Strategic Discoveries
The word “primary” could carry the entire campaign
During stakeholder interviews, Foster Avenue identified that “primary” resonated on three registers simultaneously: it named Primary Children’s Hospital, it described the fundamental nature of a community’s commitment to its children, and it evoked the promise parents make when they hold a newborn. No other word could do that work.
The urgency was demographic, not aspirational
Utah has the nation’s highest birth rate. Pediatric behavioral health emergencies have increased 300% in eight years. More than half of young patients travel over an hour to reach Primary Children’s main campus. The campaign case didn’t need to manufacture urgency. The numbers were already ahead of the system’s capacity to respond.
The network was the differentiator, not the flagship
Most children’s hospital campaigns lead with the institution. Foster Avenue recognized that Intermountain’s real distinction was the network: the ability to extend Primary Children’s expertise across six states, from a new 468,000-square-foot hospital in Lehi to telehealth connections in rural Montana. The campaign needed to make the network as compelling as the flagship.
Our Framework Applied
Why Now? Why Here? Why This?
Foster Avenue applied its “Why Now? Why Here? Why This?” strategic framework to develop the campaign rationale for Intermountain’s first systemwide philanthropic effort. The framework organized a complex, multi-priority campaign into a clear, emotionally credible case that gift officers could deliver with confidence.
Why Now?
The nation’s fastest-growing pediatric population cannot wait for the nation’s best pediatric care.
Utah is booming, and the children are arriving faster than the system can expand. An expected 50% increase in the pediatric service population by 2040 means Intermountain must build capacity now or fall permanently behind. Suicide is the leading cause of death for Utah teens. Every day of delay is a missed opportunity to reach a child.
Why Here?
Only Intermountain can leverage a world-class children’s hospital across a six-state network of care.
No other health system in the nation has attempted what Intermountain is building: extending the clinical expertise of a top-tier children’s hospital through an integrated pediatric network spanning 400,000 square miles. The vision is the best care anywhere and the best care everywhere. Intermountain is the only institution positioned to deliver both.
Why This?
Because the promise we make to our children is primary.
The campaign’s nine priorities, from a new Fetal Center to community-based Healthy Kids programs, are unified by a single commitment: that children’s health is not a department within a health system but the defining measure of a community’s values. Philanthropic partnership transforms Intermountain’s operational investment into a generational promise.
Strategic Foundation
How Strategy Became Story
The challenge of naming a $500 million, nine-priority, six-state pediatric campaign could have produced something institutional and forgettable. Instead, Foster Avenue’s discovery process surfaced a word that was already embedded in the culture of Intermountain Health: primary.
Primary Children’s Hospital. The primary commitment of a parent. The primary obligation of a community to its most vulnerable members. The strategic work was recognizing that this word didn’t need to be invented. It needed to be claimed.
“Primary Promise” became the campaign theme because it resolved the central tension Foster Avenue identified in discovery: how to honor Primary Children’s Hospital as a beloved local institution while positioning the campaign as a sweeping, regional, generation-spanning initiative. The word “promise” did the second half of that work, elevating the campaign from a hospital fundraising effort to a covenant between Intermountain and the communities it serves.
The theme proved its durability across every application, from leadership prospectus to physician engagement to community-level case statements. Gift officers reported that the language gave them a way to talk about nine separate funding priorities as one coherent story. The positioning statement captured it directly: pediatrics at Intermountain, anchored by Primary Children’s Hospital, holds an increasingly important key to the community’s future.
CAMPAIGN Theme
Positioning Statement
“Pediatrics at Intermountain Health, anchored by our beloved Primary Children’s Hospital, holds an increasingly important key to our community’s future. At a time of growing urgency, Intermountain faces both the profound responsibility to care for thousands more children and the unique opportunity to transform the face of pediatric care for our community, our region, and the nation.”
Essential Offering
“Through this campaign, we will transform the face of pediatric care for our community, our region, and the nation. The result for our children will be the best care anywhere...and the best care everywhere.”
The Deliverables
Strategy Made Visible
Leadership Case for Support
A multi-page case built around the Primary Promise narrative, designed for principal-level donor meetings. The piece moved through the campaign’s three tiers of impact—strengthen, address, extend—with patient stories, physician voices, and funding priorities woven into a single visual and narrative arc.
Service Line One-Sheeters
To support specific fundraising initiatives across a variety of service lines, Foster Avenue created one-sheeters to support more specific donor conversations.
Campaign Theme & Visual Identity
Foster Avenue developed the Primary Promise campaign mark and visual language, including a distinctive circle motif that unified photography, data visualization, and narrative across all campaign materials. The identity balanced warmth (children, families, community) with institutional authority (scale, research, network).
Additional Deliverables
Campaign Rationale & Messaging Architecture
The foundational messaging document that organized Intermountain’s nine funding priorities under three strategic pillars: Strengthen Primary Children’s Hospital, Address Emerging Health Needs, and Extend Pediatric Excellence Across the Intermountain West. This architecture gave every gift conversation a common structure.
Orientation Report & Discovery Synthesis
A comprehensive messaging framework developed to support executive and academic leaders as they communicated the campaign’s purpose across internal and external contexts. The framework established shared language around the campaign’s goals, values, and ambitions, while offering guidance on tone and emphasis for different audiences. By grounding day-to-day communications in a common narrative structure, the framework helped ensure clarity, consistency, and credibility throughout the campaign’s public rollout.
Leadership Messaging Playbook
A practical reference guide designed to help senior leaders speak about the campaign with clarity and confidence across varied contexts. The playbook included key message pillars, proof points, and adaptable talking points, enabling consistent articulation of the campaign’s goals while preserving individual voice and authenticity.
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