Established in 1982, Burnaby Hospital Foundation raises funds to ensure Burnaby Hospital is equipped to serve and support BC’s third-largest city with outstanding healthcare.

When Burnaby Hospital Foundation neared an initial fundraising goal in 2023, staff knew that the local community wanted to do more to support the hospital’s redevelopment. The next phase, The Bright Future Campaign: Better Care Close to Home, would modernize four departments essential to quality healthcare: medical imaging, inpatient oncology, intensive care and cardiac telemetry.

I was engaged to write a cohesive case, with case statements for each department, that seamlessly expanded from the first phase and sustained community momentum.

•  Writing reflected the sense of pride citizens felt by supporting their hometown through the campaign.
• I interviewed nurses and other healthcare professionals – selected by the Foundation staff – for first-hand explanations about how new equipment would improve the experiences of hospital teams, patients and their families. I translated medical speak into everyday language and clarified links between modern technologies and better outcomes for patients.
• To prepare staff for diverse prospect discussions, I included data and stories, from macro-level healthcare outcomes to the hardships local families endure by travelling to better-equipped but distant medical facilities.
• I provided simple design mock-ups and stock photo suggestions for the individual case statements.

Phase 1 is on track to be completed in 2025, while the Bright Future campaign engages more donors to meet the overall redevelopment goal of $2.4 billion.

Based in Vancouver and serving the entire province, Access Pro Bono is recognized across Canada for its innovations in legal aid. Its Everyone Legal Clinic is a one-of-a-kind, virtual public interest law teaching clinic and legal practice incubator that aims to increase access to justice and the diversity of British Columbia’s legal profession.

I wrote this case for support as part of the fundraising strategy my colleague David Love and I provided to Access Pro Bono to launch its major new initiative, Everyone Legal Clinic. 

• Access Pro Bono board and staff needed clear messages and the “just right” level of motivation for donors – individuals and companies – in and out of the legal profession.
• The case should function as a whole piece and as a storehouse of messages, language, quotes and statistics to be re-purposed in social media, talking points and future donor communications.
• To provide emotional resonance, I worked closely with senior staff to write an introductory story representative of multiple Access Pro Bono clients.
• Staff did a fantastic job with the final design and images, creating a communications tool helpful in discussions with individuals and corporations.
  
  The program successfully launched in 2022. In the first year, over two-thirds of the 44 articling students were BIPOC and worked in more than twenty communities across the province. The Clinic received the Canadian Law Award for Diversity Initiative of the Year in 2023.