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| ORAL PRESENTATIONS |
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| Year : 2021 | Volume
: 6
| Issue : 1 | Page : 94-96 |
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Crowdfunding for cancer: Success and challenges of a medical organization in Nigeria
| Date of Web Publication | 30-Jun-2021 |
Correspondence Address:
 Source of Support: None, Conflict of Interest: None
How to cite this article:
. Crowdfunding for cancer: Success and challenges of a medical organization in Nigeria. J Med Womens Assoc Niger 2021;6:94-6 |
How to cite this URL:
. Crowdfunding for cancer: Success and challenges of a medical organization in Nigeria. J Med Womens Assoc Niger [serial online] 2021 [cited 2023 Jun 6];6:94-6. Available from: http://www.jmwan.org/text.asp?2021/6/1/94/319851 |
| Introduction/Background | |  |
Crowd funding is as an innovative method of financing and has been applied in different settings as an application of crowdsourcing. It is used in developed economies for health research.
| Crowdsourcing | | |
Crowdsourcing is the process of aggregating a group of non-experts and experts in order to solve a problem. It is a model of participatory research (citizen science).
With crowdsourcing, projects are designed to capture the interest of the public and It is increasingly being used in health and medicine.
| Crowd funding | | |
Crowd funding is a method of raising funds online for a project by soliciting small donations from many people. It is an application of crowdsourcing.
Platforms for crowd funding exist are:
www.indiegogo.com
www.kickstarter.com
www.experiment.com
www.openexplorer.com
| Why Crowd funding? | | |
Traditional research grants are highly competitive and require pilot data and preliminary analyses. Though crowd funding is not a sufficient alternative to traditional grants, successful campaigns can fill the need of funding pilot projects.
In developed countries there is a chronic lack of funds; crowd funding campaigns can be used to fill this gap.
| Components of a Crowd funding Campaign | | |
- The project - Crowd fundable, Title, Logo
- Goal
- Platform
- Video. Campaign messages
- Campaign page
- Contribution levels
- Perks
- Campaign launch
- Post campaign
| Aim | | |
This paper documents the experiences, success and challenges of application of crowd funding campaigns by MWAN AKS branch.
The goal of the campaigns was to raise funds to support indigent cancer patients seen during the screening.
| Methods of Crowd funding By MWAN AKS | | |
- The project ; It must be Crowd fundable, with a title and logo
- Goal
- Platform
- Video
- Campaign page
- Contribution levels
- Perks
- Campaign launch
- Post campaign
The Project: The project was crowd fundable, had MWAN logo (MWAN is a brand), and it was titled “MWAN AKS 2018 Cancer Walk and Pink Charity Ball”. There was a pink luncheon.
Goal: The goal of the campaigns was to raise funds to support indigent cancer patients, to raise awareness on need for cancer screening and prevention and also to sensitize the public of our routine screening as MWAN.
The Platform: We used different platforms in the fundraising which iclude ; Social Media
Social media platforms used were;
- WhatsApp
- MWAN AKS facebook page, and
- Twitter handle
Print and audiovisual; the use of
- Television Broadcast,
- Radio talk show
- Flyers, banners and handbills
Word of mouth; One on one telling of people.
Campaign Message:
The campaign message was passed with the use of;
- Videos telling life stories of our cancer survivors.
- Motivational campaign messages that read thus “Donate to a worthy cause” and “Help our women who can't afford cancer care”.
| Contributions | | |
Minimum of three thousand naira (N3000) was tagged for individuals and ten thousand (N10,000) for corporate bodies.
Appeal was sought from family, friends, neighbors and corporate bodies.
A total of 486 T-shirts were ordered by 204 individuals.
Perks:
All who were active in the fundraising, participated in Cancer street walk, attended a pink charity ball, were given a MWAN Cancer fight branded pink T-shirt with a recognition on MWAN social media pages.
| Result | | |
Awareness was raised leading to an increased attendance at cancer screening. The sum of 2.5 million naira was raised from the campaign and was donated to cancer patients seen via the MWAN cancer screening campaign.
| Success Story | | |
Successful World Cancer Day event-world class
- Money raised was used to support indigent cancer patients
- The campaign on WhatsApp platform has remained a viable and vibrant online community actively engaged in raising funds for other women helping women projects.
| Post Campaign Survey | | |
A survey was taken after the campaign and these deductions were made;
- 30% of the funding came from family
- 70% of donations came from friends who did not know the organizers of the campaign personally.
- Over 90% of respondents were willing to donate to future campaigns.
- 80% of partcipants who responded scored the events excellent and would recommend to a friend.
| Factors Responsible for Success | | |
Success was recorded because of the
- Repeated captivating and motivating messages,
- Support from family members and friends was key to kick starting campaign launch
- Planning team enjoyed maximum cooperation and support from MWAN members as they snowballed the campaign messages to friends and family,
- Perks- walk for health.
| Challenges | | |
Some of the challenges experienced were;
- Limited time frame for campaign launch, more money would have been raised if the time frame was longer.
- Post campaign; Follow up of individuals that made some financial promises to the project.
| Discussion | | |
The crowd funding was a success though we started out not knowing we what to expect. In an era of economic recession, we were seeking innovative ways of funding and then decided to crowd fund because traditional sources of seeking funding from the government and corporate bodies was unreliable.
As seen in other crowd funding campaigns, perks was an incentive for donors. Many theories are available to explain public behavior and motivation for crowd funding. There are four F's that motivates online contributors-Fun, Feeling good (fulfillment), Fame, and Fortune and there were all seen in this campaign.
| Lessons Learnt | | |
In the preparation of this campaign, few lessons were learnt and they are;
- The need to be more deliberate in designing the campaigns
- The need to give time to plan, launch and execute funding campaigns.
| Next Step | | |
World Cancer Day February 4 recommended as celebration of end of biennium to mark inauguration of incumbent president.
| Conclusion/Policy Implication | | |
Crowd funding is an innovative funding mechanism for health and development projects and research. Though, not widely known but it is useful in developing and strengthening health systems.
The policy implication of this emerging concept in low middle income settings is the potential for use in funding health care.
For MWAN, we need to learn the skill of designing successful crowd funding campaigns as citizen participation is high due to our strategic position in our communities, state and Nigeria.
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