Biondolillo Associates

Pledge-based Fundraising
Walkathons

A case summary:
Making Strides Against Breast Cancer

Background

In 1992, the American Cancer Society’s (ACS) Massachusetts Division engaged Biondolillo Associates to make recommendations regarding its then seven-year-old Making Strides Against Cancer event, which had reached a plateau at $200,000. Biondolillo made two seminal recommendations:

Focus the Making Strides Against Cancer event in the area of breast cancer, and
Employ a staff-centered organizational model in order to achieve large-scale objectives.

Biondolillo was then retained, in 1993, by the Massachusetts Division to develop capacity in the area of large-scale special-event fundraising using the Biondolillo Model of pledge-based fundraising. As a result, the 1993 event drew 6,000 participants (in the rain) and raised $660,000, more than tripling the results of the previous event.

Since 1993, Biondolillo has been invited by ACS offices in 35 states both to help launch Strides and guide the property’s growth and development. Biondolillo’s approach involves planning, training and consulting designed to build organizational capacity and develop staff skills.

Profile

In 17 years, the Making Strides Against Breast Cancer program has grown from a single event raising $660,000 to a program, including 90+ Biondolillo Model events, raising $60 million per year.
October 2009 marked the 17th anniversary of the Boston Strides event, which, since 1996, has been the largest one-day, single-venue breast cancer fundraiser in the nation. (Boston’s peak year: 40,000 participants/$3.3 million.)
October 2009 also marked the 16th anniversary of the NY Metro Strides which, since 1997, has been the largest one-day, single-market fundraiser to fight breast cancer in the nation. (In a single morning, eight NY Metro Strides sites now muster over 130,000 walkers who raise over $8.75 million.)
Since its inception, over 4.5 million Strides participants have raised over $400 million from an estimated 24+ million individual sponsors.
In 2009 alone, over 500,000 walkers across the country collected $60 million to help fight breast cancer.
Each year, over 25,000 companies, hospitals and municipal organizations are represented in Strides events, with over 300 participating as Flagship™ Sponsors.
Most importantly, Strides has enabled the American Cancer Society to establish leadership positioning in the area of breast cancer in a superheated competitive arena.

Impact

Over the past 17 years, Strides has been ACS’s leading corporate relationship acquisition vehicle.
Strides has generated ACS’s largest single-event television and radio sponsorships and the largest single-event press clipping books.
Strides has been the engine for several multi-million-dollar government appropriations.
Strides techniques have been employed to help grow and develop other ACS special-event fundraising programs, including Relay for Life.
Strides has been credited with having epidemiological impact—the first known instance in the U.S. of a special event being linked definitively to saving lives.

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