NFL Quarterback Helps Seattle Children’s Score a Touchdown in Pediatric Cancer Battle

Seattle Children’s recently scored a touchdown when it launched a new campaign called “Strong Against Cancer” to raise awareness and support for groundbreaking research that holds the potential to cure childhood cancer.

Leading the play is Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson, who has a personal connection to Seattle Children’s and who has used his platform in a variety of ways to score real gains for this important effort.

“Russell Wilson comes to visit the hospital every Tuesday and visit our young patients. He posts photos of the kids on his social channels, but he has never done it for publicity,” says Allison Broadgate, Director of Foundation and Research Marketing, Seattle Children’s Hospital.

But Wilson eventually came to Seattle Children’s and said that if making his visits public would be able to help the hospital and the young patients in some way, he would be willing to do it, she recalls.

The timing was right for some media attention, since the organization had just opened the Ben Towne Center for Childhood Cancer Research at Seattle Children’s Research Institute.

“We took Wilson’s offer and the promise offered by the new center and said, ‘Let’s use the national platform to launch a fundraising campaign,’” Broadgate says.

Seattle Children’s staff galvanized a team of fundraising professionals, advertising and marketing experts, and the Web team, and spent about two months coming up with a new brand for the campaign.

For details about the highly successful campaign, including coverage by NBC Sports during the biggest football day of the year, read the full article now: Seattle Children’s Campaign Scores a Win Against Children’s Cancer.

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