Canada WHO
Pediatric Oncology Group of Ontario (POGO) works to ensure that everyone affected by childhood cancer has access to the best care and support. POGO champions childhood cancer care, and as the collective voice of this community, is the official advisor to Ontario’s Ministry of Health on children’s cancer control and treatment.
As POGO is partly funded by government grants, their fundraising efforts go toward funding areas of support that the government does not. This includes POGO’s financial assistance program, their aftercare programs and certain aspects of their research projects.
The POGO PJ party has been running for 7 years, and despite it taking a year or two for people to feel comfortable in their pjs, it is now a feature of the social calendar with people eager to show off their outfits each time POGO’s PJ Party rolls into town.
Fundraising Challenges
70 percent of POGO’s event revenue was comprised of sponsorships, so guaranteeing those sponsors turned up and filled their ticket allocation was a big challenge for POGO.
However, careful planning ensured that the impact any potential absentees. POGO placed a lot of importance on stewarding their sponsors and remaining in communication with them up until the night of the event. As a contingency plan for any last-minute drop-ops, POGO created a list of ambassadors and people who had played a crucial role in the organisation and extended invitations to them in the event of people dropping out. These actions mitigated the impact missing sponsors might have had on the event.
Event Highlights
Just glancing at the event photos will show you just how fun this night was for attendees. It was the first year that POGO introduced a theme to their PJ Party, deciding on ‘Leap into the Wild’. The theme added an extra layer of excitement to the event as people were able to introduce elements of their own creativity to the night. POGO used a motion graphic projector to add to the notion people were in the wild, with tigers and rainforest projected onto their event space walls. POGO noted this was an extremely cost-effective way of adding to the atmosphere of their event! The biggest highlight, however, was surely the amount POGO managed to raise.
How Much Was Raised?
POGO set numerous targets for the night with their base target being $320,000 and their stretch target being $350,000. Incredibly they finished the event having raised $370,000!
TOP TIP
We love the online functionality of the Givergy auction platform as it allows us to open the auction up to our entire database, regardless of whether people are attending the event, or not. We realised on the night that we were getting donations from locations over 3 hours away! This was perfect for us in diversifying our revenue streams.
Another thing we made sure to do prior to the event was market to the right people. We targeted clinics across Ontario to make sure all those attending the event were genuinely excited to be there.
Finally, we made the event short and sweet. It was on a school night, so people arrived for 18:30 and were leaving before 22:30. This allowed us to stay laser focused on our mission throughout the event, we only had one key-note speaker and spent the rest of the time encouraging our guests to have fun!
“We have been using Givergy for several years and have always been happy with the service and support they provide. The platform is very user friendly and intuitive and we are able to use it with ease internally and externally”
