Celebrating patient involvement achievements in Marketing, Fundraising and Engagement

Phil and team

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Our audience is at the heart of our fundraising strategy, and over the past year, the Marketing, Fundraising and Engagement directorate has taken great strides to put the needs and expectations of our supporters first. The Marketing, Fundraising and Engagement directorate includes Legacies, Individual Giving, Events and Sports, Marketing, Trading (e.g. Cancer Research UK shops), Volunteering, Community Fundraising, Partnerships, and High-Value Events teams to name a few.  

The directorate’s mission is to inspire millions of people to play the biggest role they can to beat cancer. We want to bring about a world where everybody lives longer, better lives, free from the fear of cancer. 

To do this; 

  • we’ll engage people with our mission, through a bold brand, engaging and clearly shows how we’re having an impact. 

  • we’ll connect with people through marketing that’s personalised to them and delivered in a way that works for them.  

  • we’ll adapt to supporters’ ever-changing needs, giving them propositions that align with how they want to support us.  

  • put our supporters at the heart of our strategy – better understand who they are and what they want.  

 

 

Our achievements this year:

The goal of the Marketing, Fundraising and Engagement directorate, when starting a new project or campaign, is to seek out ways to understand our supporters’ needs and expectations better and to respond to these. Patient involvement is integral to this process, as it allows patients and loved ones to play an active role in decision-making and strategic thinking.  

  • Teams across Marketing, Fundraising, and Engagement have delivered 43 Patient Involvement activities, which include surveys, focus groups, patient panel meetings etc.  

  •  Through these consultations, we’ve had over 550 interactions with people affected by cancer.   

 

 

How have the Marketing, Fundraising and Engagement directorate teams involved people affected by cancer in their work?

Product and Portfolio Management  

  • Providing a patient perspective on a range of potential new fundraising products, for ‘In Memory’, ‘Low Effort’ Fundraising Activities and Online Fundraising Challenges.  

  • Shaping our new Social Fundraising Strategy. Giving the team confidence to test out new platforms for fundraising challenges.  

Marketing and Supporter Engagement  

  • Providing feedback on a range of brand and marketing campaigns including the ‘We Are’ campaign and Race for Life brand refresh, to ensure they’re sensitive and engaging to a patient audience.  

  • Improving the tone of voice, accessibility, and creative layout of our loyalty communications, including the Annual Supporter Update, e-news, and January Cross-Sell campaign. 

Partnerships, High-Value Fundraising Events, and Talent   

  • Exploring acceptability of potential partnership opportunities with the alcohol sector including alcohol manufacturers and establishments that sell alcohol. Feedback from the panel steered the team toward CAW only as too high risk of an industry. 

Communities  

  • Providing feedback to help shape the new Volunteer Management System, to ensure it will be fit for purpose and meet our audiences’ needs.  

Trading  

  • Shaping health information for our Cancer Research UK shops, to raise awareness of ways to stop smoking and encourage people to take action. 

Insight and Performance

  • Shaping our brand Impact statements. Helping us find the most impactful ways to talk about ourselves as a charity. 

 

 

One of the biggest impacts of involving the patient panels in the development of the Annual report and accounts and the Annual Supporter Update report, was helping us to realise when our writing wasn't as accessible as we'd intended and, ultimately, was preventing us from telling a clear story about the impact of our research.

Sam, Cancer Research UK staff member 

 

 

It’s great to know that the feedback we gave to you and the team was listened to and allowed Cancer Research UK to create a thought-provoking wonderful advert.

Patient Panel member after seeing our new TV ad