2021 Winner
2021 Winners
SickKids Foundation
SickKids VS: Monument to the Brave
In 2015, SickKids set the largest fundraising goal in Canadian healthcare history—$1.5 billion—money it needed to build a new hospital.
Since then, the VS platform has been transformational for SickKids, making it the most top-of-mind charity in Toronto. However, its strength is also its weakness as would-be donors think that the job of fundraising is done.
The challenge was to help the hospital make history by securing the final 5,000 donors it needed to cross the one million monthly donor milestone.
Sick isn’t weak. It fights back. That’s why patients at SickKids earn Bravery Beads with every procedure they endure. Every bead is different. And each is worn like a badge of honour. Over the years, more than one million patients have earned more than one million beads. Yet few outside the hospital have ever seen one.
Struck by the power in a piece of plastic, they set out to create an everlasting symbol (because none existed before) that would honour the courage of sick children. The strategy was simple: use personal acts of bravery to inspire public acts of generosity.
Bravery Beads are colourful and curious, so we put them at the heart of our campaign, installing five 10 ft. tall replicas, unveiled one by one in high-traffic areas across the city, such as Eaton Centre and Union Station.
The bead for completing a treatment launched first. Next came surgeries and scans. Then it was heart transplants, travelling to receive care, and finally, recovering in isolation. Each bead set the stage for sharing patient stories through exclusive media opportunities and one-on-one interviews with the volunteers who run the Bravery Bead program at SickKids. They also served as the backdrop to influencer content commissioned to sustain the conversation.
Over the span of three months, Canadians grasped the impact Bravery Beads have on a child’s healthcare journey and answered the two-fold call to action: the first aimed at the public, urging them to become monthly donors and the second aimed at patients (past and present), asking them to donate their precious beads for the making of a monument honouring their fight.
We then commissioned Canadian artist Nico Williams, a beadwork specialist, to design and build SickKids Monument to the Brave using the very beads collected from patients. The Monument was unveiled at SickKids Foundation’s millionth donor celebration and shared with media through video and photo assets and, of course, artist interviews where Williams shared the inspiration behind his design. It will live at the new SickKids as an everlasting symbol of patient strength once the new hospital is complete.
It’s worth noting that our campaign was also supported by traditional advertising via an emotional film that aired online and on TV and through OOH creative that lived throughout the city, principally at Yonge and Dundas Square and Eaton Centre.
Overall, results from the campaign surpassed all projections. It reached one million donor goal only half way through the campaign, it acquired 154 monthly donors on the first day of the campaign alone (the highest first day of all previous Fall campaigns which ran during the same time period), it had a +15% YOY increase in monthly donors acquired, equaling over $8.6 million in lifetime value and a +20% YOY increase in one-time donations, it secured 72 pieces of earned media coverage across broadcast, print and online channels and 117 social media hits from a combination of earned social channels and influencer partners, it earned 26 million impressions through hits on major outlets such as CBC, Toronto Star, Breakfast Television and CTV News and 10.5 million social media impressions for a total of 36.5 million impressions across the entire earned campaign and 3,000+ Bravery Beads were donated by patients past and present to be part of the Monument to the Brave along with countless unforgettable patient stories.
Since then, the VS platform has been transformational for SickKids, making it the most top-of-mind charity in Toronto. However, its strength is also its weakness as would-be donors think that the job of fundraising is done.
The challenge was to help the hospital make history by securing the final 5,000 donors it needed to cross the one million monthly donor milestone.
Sick isn’t weak. It fights back. That’s why patients at SickKids earn Bravery Beads with every procedure they endure. Every bead is different. And each is worn like a badge of honour. Over the years, more than one million patients have earned more than one million beads. Yet few outside the hospital have ever seen one.
Struck by the power in a piece of plastic, they set out to create an everlasting symbol (because none existed before) that would honour the courage of sick children. The strategy was simple: use personal acts of bravery to inspire public acts of generosity.
Bravery Beads are colourful and curious, so we put them at the heart of our campaign, installing five 10 ft. tall replicas, unveiled one by one in high-traffic areas across the city, such as Eaton Centre and Union Station.
The bead for completing a treatment launched first. Next came surgeries and scans. Then it was heart transplants, travelling to receive care, and finally, recovering in isolation. Each bead set the stage for sharing patient stories through exclusive media opportunities and one-on-one interviews with the volunteers who run the Bravery Bead program at SickKids. They also served as the backdrop to influencer content commissioned to sustain the conversation.
Over the span of three months, Canadians grasped the impact Bravery Beads have on a child’s healthcare journey and answered the two-fold call to action: the first aimed at the public, urging them to become monthly donors and the second aimed at patients (past and present), asking them to donate their precious beads for the making of a monument honouring their fight.
We then commissioned Canadian artist Nico Williams, a beadwork specialist, to design and build SickKids Monument to the Brave using the very beads collected from patients. The Monument was unveiled at SickKids Foundation’s millionth donor celebration and shared with media through video and photo assets and, of course, artist interviews where Williams shared the inspiration behind his design. It will live at the new SickKids as an everlasting symbol of patient strength once the new hospital is complete.
It’s worth noting that our campaign was also supported by traditional advertising via an emotional film that aired online and on TV and through OOH creative that lived throughout the city, principally at Yonge and Dundas Square and Eaton Centre.
Overall, results from the campaign surpassed all projections. It reached one million donor goal only half way through the campaign, it acquired 154 monthly donors on the first day of the campaign alone (the highest first day of all previous Fall campaigns which ran during the same time period), it had a +15% YOY increase in monthly donors acquired, equaling over $8.6 million in lifetime value and a +20% YOY increase in one-time donations, it secured 72 pieces of earned media coverage across broadcast, print and online channels and 117 social media hits from a combination of earned social channels and influencer partners, it earned 26 million impressions through hits on major outlets such as CBC, Toronto Star, Breakfast Television and CTV News and 10.5 million social media impressions for a total of 36.5 million impressions across the entire earned campaign and 3,000+ Bravery Beads were donated by patients past and present to be part of the Monument to the Brave along with countless unforgettable patient stories.