Canadian Cancer Society

Canadian Cancer Society Uses Virtual Accounts to Make Managing Events Easier

The Canadian Cancer Society was founded in 1938 and is a national, community-based organization of volunteers whose mission is to eradicate cancer and enhance the quality of life for people living with cancer. The Canadian Cancer Society provides leading financial support for cancer research and delivers community-based support programs and prevention information for all types of cancer.

The Canadian Cancer Society, in partnership with the National Cancer Institute of Canada, achieves its mission through research, education, patient services, and advocacy for healthy public policy. These efforts are supported by volunteers, staff, and funds raised in communities across Canada.

The Challenge:

• Canadian Cancer Society BC and Yukon Division needed a centralized solution to roll out multiple events to its seven regions and 58 local communities.
• The organization also wanted to increase participant retention from year to year across many of its events.
• Finally, the organization wanted to provide tools that would enable its supporters to independently host events to support the organization.

The Solution:

• CCS uses Sphere® Events™ featuring Friends Asking Friends Thon to run multiple events including Cops for Cancer and Relay For Life.
• The organization shares data across all seven regions and 58 communities via the Virtual Accounts functionality in Blackbaud Sphere’s multi-chapter enterprise platform.
• CCS implemented template-driven Independent Fundraising Event (IFE) websites for all seven regions following a successful 2007 pilot.

The Results:

• The Division leads all others in average online donation (>$70 CAN). Other Divisions use a competing system.
• The Division successfully deployed 69 events in 2007 from a centralized database.
• The organization increased online revenue by 30 percent in fiscal 2007.
• In 2008, the Division launched the first centralized eSolicitation using Virtual Accounts and generated more than $25,000 CAN online in two weeks.
• The organization raised more than $320,000 CAN online in fiscal 2008 from 116 local events in seven regions through IFE.