American Cancer Society remains resilient, battles cancer through a digital-first strategy

In a typical year, in-person Relay for Life events bring together roughly 4 million people, making them the largest volunteer-based fundraising event in the world. Participants raise money to battle cancer, honor lost loved ones and survivors with candlelit luminaria, and take turns circling a track for a full 24 hours.

These events have raised more than $5 billion for the American Cancer Society since the first relay in 1985. These donations enable the nonprofit to fund research, provide support to patients and caregivers, and help people reduce their cancer risk.

But like much in 2020, this core fundraising event for the American Cancer Society looks different.

Going virtual with Relay for Life—through live broadcasts, online auctions, and even hosted dance parties—is just one of the ways the American Cancer Society is adapting. With technology, the Atlanta, Georgia–based nonprofit delivers on its mission and funnels maximum resources to its services.

“Overall, we’re being more creative through technology,” says Keith Weller, Vice President of Enterprise Technology Services at the American Cancer Society. “By supporting our mission and reducing costs, transitioning to a cloud-based infrastructure allows us to be more agile.”

Doubling down on digital-first

The American Cancer Society had already incorporated a digital transformation into its strategic plans, but when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, “it really drove us to a digital-first strategy,” Weller says. The need to both enable remote work and support patients from afar accelerated the nonprofit’s transition to a cloud-based infrastructure.

The American Cancer Society’s large real estate footprint came to weigh heavily on the organization’s budget, especially because headquarters staff switched to working from home during the pandemic.

The American Cancer Society reached out to the Microsoft Azure Migration Program and Microsoft Partner Network member Redapt for assistance. “We knew we’d need help,” Weller remembers. “And we needed to make sure we did it right: This is our future as an organization.”

Ultimately, working with the Azure Migration Program and Redapt allowed the American Cancer Society to transition to an almost entirely cloud-based IT infrastructure in less than nine weeks, almost a month ahead of schedule.

The nonprofit is already seeing substantial benefits. The American Cancer Society has reduced its overhead costs, allowing it to focus funds on research and services; begin to translate data into informed decisions and medical insights; and pivot to pursue its mission during changing times.

Operating lean to free up time and budget

With the arrival of COVID-19, the American Cancer Society has had to transition away from its fundraising powerhouses: in-person events like runs, relays, and galas. But the services the nonprofit provides—overnight stays for patients during treatment, a 24/7 hotline, rides to medical appointments—are just as important as ever.

Cost savings from becoming a cloud-first organization help the American Cancer Society to dedicate the greatest possible funding to provide these services to cancer patients, their caregivers, and researchers.

“We were looking for the greatest cost savings possible,” Weller says—including moving out of a 5,000-square-foot onsite datacenter. With employees working remotely via Teams, the transition made sense (and a whole lot of savings).

The team transitioned 100 onsite apps to the Azure cloud platform, which allowed staff access to the tools they needed from anywhere. They also jettisoned the need (and cost) of the maintenance, hardware upgrades, and security of the nearly 1,000 virtual machines in the onsite datacenter.

The Microsoft Azure Migration Program didn’t simply cookie-cutter all the existing services and tools to the cloud. Rather, “we rationalized our environment hardcore,” Weller says. They cut the number of services they used (and paid for) by nearly two-thirds, going from around 900 to less than 350, then used Azure Migrate to transition the virtual machines they did need to the cloud.

The organization has fewer budget line items, an immediate benefit of paring down—but not the only plus, Weller says. “We’re leaner now. Now that we’re in the cloud, we have fewer systems to manage and can focus on bigger things.” The enterprise technology services team now has more time to design ways to analyze donor behavior data for more effective fundraising, for example.

The Azure Migration Program and Redapt also helped the American Cancer Society design a cloud infrastructure with a just-right fit. Over-scaling in the cloud or making mistakes that need to be corrected can be costly. “Microsoft and our partner Redapt were knowledgeable in not only the cloud but also security,” Weller says. “By working with them, we didn’t have to go through a learning curve.”

Fundraising in a digital world

Out of necessity, American Cancer Society has shifted nearly all fundraising efforts online to help stop the spread of COVID-19 and to protect people battling cancer, who are particularly susceptible to contracting the virus.

“The pandemic has placed a premium on connectivity with our constituents,” says Danielle Heller, Strategic Director of Field Planning and Operations at American Cancer Society. “Now more than ever, meaningful contact and connection with patients, caregivers, supporters, and the public in general is critical to advancing our lifesaving mission.”

The nonprofit’s fundraising team has found opportunity to deepen these connections in the transition to remote work, particularly through Microsoft Teams. “Location is no longer a barrier to meaningful engagement,” Heller says. That means a donor relationship manager can talk to supporters on opposite coasts on the same day, or chat with donors in hard-to-reach locations.

Digital tools also allow American Cancer Society to be everywhere at once. “Technology serves as the catalyst to increase our reach across all fundraising channels,” Heller adds. Embracing cloud-based infrastructure helps employees, donors, and volunteers interact and collaborate—which is even more important during a time that requires innovative problem-solving.

For example, Teams has allowed the fundraising team to create custom experiences for supporters. They have designed custom backgrounds that display the nonprofit’s logo during virtual meetings, and they use emojis, GIFs, and other widgets on Teams to foster closer relationships with donors.

Going digital has also helped teams within American Cancer Society to reduce operating overhead. “Through the elimination of traveling to and from in-person meetings, we have gained hours of productivity; we have also decreased travel-related expenses and the other costs of in-person meetings,” Heller says.

Trimming operations expenses make each dollar raised stretch even further.

Innovating through the agility of the cloud

Unexpected changes, like the COVID-19 pandemic, certainly bring challenges to nonprofits like the American Cancer Society. They also bring opportunity, Weller says.

With Azure, the IT team will more easily and quickly support the rest of the nonprofit’s innovative ideas.

Weller’s team is in the process of developing a “service catalog” of cloud offerings on an internal portal. The list will both help the rest of the nonprofit understand the myriad options Azure provides and build those out with fewer resources.

For example, Gamers vs. Cancer, one of the fundraising initiatives within the nonprofit, wanted the team to create a custom Minecraft environment for a virtual event. Building that out within Azure will end up costing a fraction of what it would have before the switch, in both time and budget.

In the past, the IT team would have had to do a full business case, get quotes on equipment, invest in that hardware, wait for the shipment, and then set it up. “Now we can build it in a playground and test it out, and if it doesn’t work, spin it down,” Weller explains. “The time and cost commitment is so much smaller.”

He adds that with so many features available in Azure Marketplace, teams across the nonprofit will be more creative with virtual events.

Turning data into research breakthroughs

As an enterprise-scale nonprofit, the American Cancer Society has a treasure trove of data on everything from donation patterns to a decades-long cancer prevention study. The power of the cloud helps the nonprofit transform data into insights more quickly.

For example, the organization is testing an Azure SQL instance to help the finances team fine-tune budgets more efficiently. The instance collects budget variances—the difference between a budgeted amount and the actual cost—so managers can identify where estimates were off.

With the capabilities of Azure, the opportunities are virtually limitless. Weller says, “We want the ability to use the vast amount of data we have in the best way possible to benefit cancer patients and help with cancer research.”

The American Cancer Society does not endorse any product or service.