Donations and off setting cost of charity care

I am very curious about the practice of using unrestricted donations to off set the cost of charity care. Why would an institution want to do this? My thought was that we have the non-profit status and that we are to use our tax savings to provide for the charity care programs. Why would you take donations to off set that? Wouldn’t you want to use your donations to take care of other, non-billable, issues our most vulnerable patients experience?

Who is brave enough to take this question on?

Thanks!