How CancerCare has recruited talented fundraisers in support of diversifying its philanthropic revenue streams

Founded in 1944 in New York City, CancerCare is the leading national organization providing free, professional support services and information to help anyone impacted by cancer manage the emotional, practical and financial challenges of cancer.

CancerCare’s core services are case management; counseling services; support groups over the phone, online and in-person; educational workshops; publications; and financial and co-payment assistance. All CancerCare services are provided by oncology social workers and other employees with cancer expertise, as well as world-leading cancer experts. In the fiscal year ending June 30, 2021, CancerCare’s social workers answered over 49,000 calls to its helplines from people across the US affected by cancer.   

The Opportunity

CancerCare first engaged our counsel in 2014. They were seeking a partner to help in the development of their fundraising program for the purpose of building a sustainable structure and implementing best practice systems that would generate reliable sources of philanthropic revenue for the organization.

Following the completion of this fundraising engagement, CancerCare partnered with us once more in 2020. The organization was at an exciting point of growth in its history and seeking a Senior Grants Administrator to play a key role in that continued growth.

The Results of Our Partnership

Fundraising

At the direction of CancerCare’s CEO and Senior Director of Community Relations, we focused our fundraising counsel on three key areas:

• Enhancing the major gifts program: We designed a major gifts system and framework that refined the major gifts prospect pipeline and prioritized future cultivation efforts.
• Strengthening the annual giving program: We helped CancerCare to revise and expand its direct mail program and engage a direct response partner to create a robust, multi-channel direct response program that resulted in increased revenues, gifts, and donors.
• Improving efficiencies in development operations: We provided counsel in restructuring the fundraising database management and assisted in the recruitment and onboarding of a data analyst.

Executive Search

To recruit a Senior Grants Administrator for CancerCare, we were able to draw on our vast, known network of institutional giving professionals in the greater New York area. This meant we were able to deliver a strong, diverse pool and do so efficiently. CancerCare hired Renee Taylor-Foles to the role in January 2021. Renee brought over 20 years of fundraising experience, with a strong focus in corporate and foundation relations. Most recently, she had served as the Organizational Advancement Partner at Urban Bush Women, where she developed institutional fundraising and individual donor strategies, as well as organizational branding strategies to advance the vision and mission of the organization.

In April, Renee was promoted to Director of Grants Administration. At that point, we partnered with CancerCare once again to recruit another Senior Grants Administrator. CancerCare welcomed Rachel Sangalang in August. She had most recently served as Director, Corporate and Foundation Partnerships at the Girl Scouts of Greater New York. There, she oversaw a diverse portfolio of corporate, foundation, and government grants and developed an annual plan for strategic institutional revenue growth.

Looking Forward

CancerCare is committed to increasing and diversifying its revenue each year, and Renee and Rachel will play a key role in that growth.