Cancer Research UK
The challenge
One of the UK’s most celebrated charities has a big ambition: to beat cancer sooner. To achieve this, the group needed to raise its fundraising targets and create new sources of growth. Our task was to rapidly develop fresh, big ideas to generate new fundraising models.
Our approach
We created a series of interviews and creative events with the internal team plus external charity experts to spark new thinking. By speaking directly to people affected by cancer, we discovered some surprising new insights that turned previous assumptions upside down. The high-energy innovation programme created a range of strong ideas through a combination of interviews, workshops, creative sessions, off-line ideas development and market sizing.
The results
Our work exceeded expectations with high-value big ideas emerging rapidly. The top concept became one of the charity’s largest new fundraising income streams.
Mary was absolutely committed to getting the best possible outcome for Cancer Research UK. She was collaborative, authoritative and friendly – but challenged the team to help take their ideas to a new level. She puts customer insight at the heart of innovation and combines that with a strong commercial perspective so that the ideas she helps create are much more likely to succeed in the market.