Key Elements
- NMDP achieved strong early results and a clear roadmap to completion for a multi-year campaign
- Ongoing fundraising efforts will benefit from a foundation staff reorganization, new market-based strategies, and a fresh mid-level giving framework
The National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP) (formerly Be The Match) is a global leader working every day to save lives through cellular therapy. NMDP connects patients with life-threatening blood cancers or blood disorders with a matching donor for a life-saving blood stem cell transplant. The NMDP Registry® is the most diverse registry in the world and the organization provides patients and their families one-on-one support, education, and guidance before, during, and after transplant.
We chose to hire CCS because of their expertise and professional comprehensive approach to our work. The most valuable aspect of working with CCS during our project was their ability to leverage a broader team of experts to build strategy and support the execution of our campaign. This included engagement with external and internal stakeholders, our CEO and other executive team members, program owners, and development team members. I would recommend CCS over and over again because of the extremely positive experience. NMDP is better because of CCS.
Joy King, Executive Director, Foundation and Chief Advancement Officer, national marrow donor program
THE CHALLENGE
70% of patients who need a blood stem cell or marrow transplant do not have a fully matching donor in their family—they turn to NMDP to find an unrelated donor. Today, the registry isn’t diverse enough for the patients who need help. Matching donors with patients is largely based on ancestry. Currently, there is a large disparity between different ethnic backgrounds, and some patients do not have a match.
Accordingly, NMDP set out to double the lives impacted by ethnically diverse populations and double its capacity to deliver the cell therapy product patients need when they need it. NMDP retained CCS to create a path forward for launching a multi-year, $100 million comprehensive campaign to fund these initiatives.
THE SOLUTION
To create the campaign roadmap, CCS conducted a feasibility study that included over 80 interviews with key stakeholders across the country, internal focus groups, and robust analysis of NMDP’s constituent database. Our data analytics work involved wealth screening, predictive modeling, and placing individuals on an affinity curve to guide donor outreach strategy.
At the conclusion of the study, CCS recommended that NMDP begin planning for a five—to seven-year comprehensive campaign to address the needs outlined in its strategic vision. Subsequently, CCS was retained to continue our partnership for campaign management and other tracks of activity during the following two years.
THE IMPACT
Working closely with the NMDP Foundation team, CCS supported raising more than $30 million during the first two years of the $100 million comprehensive campaign—the second year of which was during the early months of the global COVID-19 pandemic.
The campaign not only advanced major gift results, but also focused on effectively communicating highly technical information to a non-expert audience, building a mid-level giving program, and creating a framework for launching five market-specific strategies in key metropolitan regions.
Featured Team Member
When lives are at stake, everyone comes to the table ready to work hard and smart. That’s what NMDP does every day and what made CCS’s collaboration with the NMDP team so impactful and fulfilling.
Scott Vachon, Senior Vice President, CCS Fundraising
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