Our strategy is crucial if we are to effectively balance our long and short-term initiatives. This is also how we keep our operations on the right track, so that we can be sure to achieve our long-term goal of eradicating childhood cancer.
We at the Swedish Childhood Cancer Fund work to save lives. For us, it is about helping to improve the quality of life for children with cancer and their families through vital support measures. It is about providing information and promoting our important issues in the public debate, and it is about strengthening long-term, complex research in the field of paediatric oncology.
The cornerstones of the Swedish Childhood Cancer Fund’s operations are our three missions in combination with the ever-important fundraising. Together, the three missions – research and training, advice and support, and information – aim to generate the best possible benefit from our donors’ contributions. The missions and our overall operational structure are well-balanced and the result of careful analysis of the best way for us to make a difference. Beyond the needs analysis, we at the Swedish Childhood Cancer Fund see several advantages to working with three missions: we create a clear structure to our operations, both internally and externally; we can allocate and demand liability and authority; and we can set goals, measure and monitor our work. This allows us to combine focused initiatives in the framework of a mission involving interdisciplinary efforts from the whole of the Swedish Childhood Cancer Fund.
Cooperating missions create added value
The Swedish Childhood Cancer Fund’s three missions are not separate units, but are mutually dependent. Without the information mission’s efforts to raise awareness of childhood cancers, and without campaigning to shape public opinion, we would have far fewer prospects of establishing important collaborations for the invaluable advice and support operations. This also affects our opportunities to reach out with our calls for research proposals, and of course for our fundraising activities as well. At the same time, our research mission and that whole part of our operations must be managed properly to maintain credibility in our communications and in the support we provide under advice and support.
Our different missions collaborate closely, and the planning, implementation and monitoring of our activities is all coordinated. We also quality assure the work at several levels of our operations. We at the Swedish Childhood Cancer Fund work with clear internal rules and guidelines, while at the same time significant aspects of our operations are regulated by external requirements. We constantly strive to do better, and we are driven by the challenge of continuously improving our processes and methods. This is how we will generate greater value for those we are here to benefit – the children who are diagnosed with cancer
A five-year strategy sets the priority order of our initiatives
The Swedish Childhood Cancer Fund’s strategy is clear, concrete and serves as a tool for our everyday operations. At the same time, it serves as a guideline for the priority of different parts of our operations over the course of five years. The current five-year strategy covers the period from 2018 to the end of 2022.
Our five-year strategy combines several perspectives, both internal and external. In addition to the internal operational management, the strategy embraces a long-term goal for fundraising, emphasising a more proactive approach to childhood cancer research, and a clear focus on developing support for and awareness of adults who had cancer as children.
Our strategic ambitions are then made concrete as starting points for annual planning and activity planning in each mission. Our basic philosophy is to follow clear goals, metrics and performance indicators for all parts of our operations. This is how we will one day achieve our final goal – to eradicate childhood cancer once and for all.