SickKids Foundation wanted to refill their prospect pipeline. The incredible success of last year’s VS campaign created a unique challenge coming into 2018: the campaign was so effective at converting prospects into donors that the organization’s actual prospect list was now quite thin. A good problem to have (but a problem nonetheless), requiring SickKids to direct some funds and focus to lead generation in order to refill the potential donor database.

SickKids is more than a hospital, it’s a family. People with a personal connection to SickKids are much more likely to become donors, and caring for each single patient creates a ripple effect that touches the lives of many beyond the immediate family involved. Even if an individual has not had a child at the hospital, the goal was to make them realize that they may still have a personal connection to the patients, parents, doctors, staff, volunteers, and fans that make up the SickKids family.

From this, the idea was born - join the SickKids Family Tree. SickKids is a family made up of everyone who fills the halls and everyone who’s been inspired by their fight. The goal was to visualize the incredible reach and impact of just how many people are connected to the hospital by asking the audience to start (or join) a branch of the broader SickKids Family Tree. Empowering the existing network of supporters – giving them a unique way to advocate for the brand – amplified the message across social channels and helped recruit more family and friends into the community.

The plan was to create an authentic and emotional way for the existing members of the community to reach out and help bring even more people (and potential donors) into the SickKids family. The best way to do this was to talk to them one-to-one. An online hub was created to connect everyone who has ever been touched by SickKids. Whether they’ve been patients, known patients, worked on the frontline or have simply shared the message, they are part of the SickKids family. And they belong on the SickKids Family Tree. The campaign launched on Family Day weekend and targeted existing donors and event participants, asking them to join the tree. Advertising on social networks (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram) followed, amplifying the message and inviting new family, friends and followers to join. Family Tree members could track their unique branch in real time and watch their support network expand through a series of stunning data visualizations.

In keeping with the goal of generating donor prospects, the organization did not ask for donations. Instead, the campaign asked people to simply show their support by lending their name to the Family Tree. They were also asked to identify their connection to SickKids, a critical piece of data that helps inform their likelihood to donate and advocate on behalf of SickKids. A donor match based on the number of names collected was used to incent registrations within the campaign period. Once they joined the Family Tree, people were given the option of opting in to receive future communications from SickKids. Opt-ins would then flow into the lead nurture curriculum.

By giving existing advocates a unique, emotional and visually stunning platform to declare (and solicit) their personal connections to SickKids, the campaign was able to generate more than 5x as many new donor leads as originally targeted. 14,500 individual branches of the SickKids Family Tree were started, helping to surpass the donor prospect goal by more than 550%. The campaign generated a new and critical data point for identifying a potential donor’s connection to SickKids.