Background and Context: The Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation is the most successful hospital based cancer fundraising entity in Canada. In 2012, with a need to continue to raise significant funds to support the leading work going on at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, we embarked on a historic 5 year financial campaign: THE BILLION DOLLAR CHALLENGE.
Aim: Over 5 years, secure $1 billion to revolutionize cancer care by creating the new gold standard: Personalized Cancer Medicine. The Princess Margaret would create the blueprint, develop and optimize new procedures for all patients at The Princess Margaret and share this with other cancer organizations across Canada and around the world.
Strategy/Tactics: To meet this challenge, we reached out to our vast community with a common message and purpose and the goal of securing $500 million which our researchers hope to match with $500 million in research grants. All programs - ongoing and new initiatives would be wrapped up in the BILLION DOLLAR CHALLENGE to help us lead the way in Personalized Cancer Medicine.
Process: The campaign was lead by the CEO and an integrated project team with representatives from all revenue lines and all functional areas. It was launched with an impactful marketing, relationship and communications plan. Mass media communications and targeted messaging and multiple events with consistent ongoing messaging have kept this challenge at the forefront of our public.
Costs and returns: The investment to-date is $ 2 million plus with much of the work being done pro-bono. Two years into the campaign we have secured $455 million in funding and are tracking ahead of plan.
Outcomes/What was learned: Refreshing the messaging along the way is key and getting more specific in terms of what the Billion dollars will be used for is critical. Ongoing communication of impact is very important.