Competitive Funding Strategies for the Conquer Cancer Foundation of ASCO
Purpose: The Conquer Cancer Foundation (CCF), the philanthropic arm of ASCO, is responsible for funding innovative clinical research. CCF wants to broaden its donor base instead of relying predominantly on health-care companies. Our Leadership Development Program (LDP) group was tasked with identifying potential donor sources and making recommendations to increase funding. Materials and Methods: We selected three sources to research: the general public, crowdsourcing/social media, and ASCO members. We subsequently focused our efforts on ASCO members, of whom only 2% to 3% are donors to CCF and < 8% are repeat donors. To analyze this low rate, we sent out two separate surveys to various groups of members within ASCO. Results: We identified lack of knowledge as a major deterrent to giving; surprisingly, even those who hold ASCO leadership positions or participated in committees lacked knowledge about CCF funding. Also, the misconception that ASCO is rich and does not need philanthropic s