Since the 1950s, The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society has made extraordinary strides in curing blood cancers and improving patients’ lives. But the donor public had little awareness of LLS and its impact on the cancer landscape. Our integrated advertising campaign changed minds and behavior in a big way.

Research led to an important truth about donors: Not only do they want to make an impact with their contributions, but the more impact you can show them they have, the more likely they are to increase their donations and to keep on giving. We brought this insight to work in our messaging, which eschews the usual category guilt and sentimentality and shows the pioneering results donor contributions have led to, all under the theme line, “Someday is today.”

Campaign results yielded the most successful initiative for LLS to date. Average daily donations rose by 50% when all media were working together, and annual online donations were 88% higher in markets where our campaign aired.

What makes Someday is Today different from most other fundraising campaigns is that the facts can speak for themselves – the facts being cancer patients who have been cured or are in remission. They are enjoying what was once considered an impossible quality of life for cancer sufferers. IPNY crossed the country one summer and talked to a number of cancer survivors. The reality of their lives and the moving, believe-it-or-not quality of their experience has been popularized at local LLS chapter fundraisers, on YouTube and Facebook, and on a dedicated LLS fundraising microsite.

Three months after starting treatment for acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL), Chuck Pagano was back as new coach of the Indianapolis Colts. “My condition was leukemia,” Pagano said famously, “but my position was, I’m walking out of here.” That kind of courage is what helped Pagano gut through three rounds of chemotherapy and inspired the Indianapolis community to take him into their hearts. This dramatic story was known to every football fan, as were the PSA television and print ads created for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, which helps patients like Coach Pagano by funding APL research.