HLTH 6405 Week 8 Executive Decision Memo Example

Memorandum

To: Executive Director, Riverside Health Partners

From: Health Education Program Manager

Date: November 2, 2026

Re: Recommendation on the $250,000 offer from the regional soft-drink bottler for the diabetes education program

1. Recommendation

Accept the bottler's gift only if it agrees in writing to four conditions. If it will not, decline and pursue the other funding leads listed in section 4.

The four conditions:

1. The bottler has no role in the curriculum, materials, class content or staff hiring for the program, stated in the gift agreement.

2. The bottler is acknowledged in the center's annual donor list and website donor page, not as a "community partner" on class materials.

3. The board reviews and approves the gift under our conflict of interest policy, and the arrangement is disclosed publicly.

4. The agreement allows the center to end the arrangement and return unspent funds if any condition is breached.

2. Why

The money pays for a second teacher and evening sessions. Our program serves about 600 adults a year during working hours; evening classes would reach working adults we now miss. That is a real benefit to patients.

The risk is not the money itself but what could come with it: influence over our message and an acknowledgment that sits beside our advice to limit sugary drinks. The conditions remove the influence and move the acknowledgment off class materials.

Our professional code supports this approach. The American College of Healthcare Executives code requires executives to disclose financial conflicts of interest and, when a board review determines it, to avoid them; to communicate truthfully and not in a misleading way; and to put patient care above other considerations (American College of Healthcare Executives [ACHE], 2025). Condition 3 meets the disclosure and review requirement, condition 2 avoids a misleading acknowledgment and condition 1 protects the quality of care.

Public health ethics points the same way: when a benefit carries a burden, the burden should be minimized and the least infringing route chosen (Childress et al., 2002).

3. What the Conditions Accomplish

Each condition answers a specific risk. The content clause protects the integrity of what patients are taught, which is the program's reason for existing. Moving the acknowledgment to the donor list keeps the sponsor's name away from advice to limit its products, so patients are not left to wonder whether the program's message has softened. Board review and public disclosure give the decision a process that others can examine, which protects the center's reputation whichever way the board decides. The exit clause limits the center's exposure if the relationship changes. Together, they let the center accept the benefit without accepting the influence that usually makes such gifts controversial.

The conditions also give us a test. A sponsor whose purpose is community support should accept all four with little difficulty. A sponsor whose purpose is marketing will resist the second and perhaps the first. How the bottler responds will tell us much of what we need to know.

4. What Could Go Wrong

Patients or staff may object to any association with a soft-drink company. Public disclosure and a clear statement that the sponsor has no role in content are our best response. If objections are strong, the board can still decline.

The bottler may refuse the donor-list acknowledgment because it wants visibility on materials. If so, that tells us the gift is partly a marketing purchase, and we should decline.

We may become dependent on the funding. The two-year term should be treated as a bridge while we seek sustained funding, not as permanent support.

5. Alternatives If We Decline

Three leads could fund at least the evening classes: the hospital system's community benefit fund, the state diabetes prevention grant cycle opening in the spring and our existing foundation donors, two of whom have funded education before. None is certain, and together they are unlikely to match $250,000 in the first year.

6. Next Steps This Week

1. I will draft the four conditions as gift agreement language for legal review.

2. You raise the gift with the board chair for review at the next meeting.

3. I will contact the bottler's community affairs office to ask whether the conditions are acceptable before the board meets, so the board decides on actual terms.

7. What I Need From You

A yes or no on pursuing the conditions, and permission to share this memo with the board chair. If you prefer to decline outright, I will draft a short, courteous reply to the bottler and begin the alternative funding requests this month.

8. What This Memo Does Not Address

This memo does not settle the broader question of whether the center should ever accept money from companies whose products contribute to the conditions we treat. That is a policy question for the board, and this gift is a reasonable occasion to ask it (Kass, 2001).

References

American College of Healthcare Executives. (2025). ACHE code of ethics. https://www.ache.org/about-ache/our-story/our-commitments/ethics/ache-code-of-ethics

Childress, J. F., Faden, R. R., Gaare, R. D., Gostin, L. O., Kahn, J., Bonnie, R. J., Kass, N. E., Mastroianni, A. C., Moreno, J. D., & Nieburg, P. (2002). Public health ethics: Mapping the terrain. Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics, 30(2), 170-178. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1748-720X.2002.tb00384.x

Kass, N. E. (2001). An ethics framework for public health. American Journal of Public Health, 91(11), 1776-1782. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.91.11.1776