Elevate Impact

A clear strategy to carry a century of impact forward

Cancer Council South Australia · Strategy Design · Social and Public Welfare, Health

We designed a clear three-year strategy for Cancer Council South Australia, uniting prevention, research and support behind one purpose ahead of the charity's centenary.

The challenge

Cancer Council South Australia has supported South Australians through cancer since 1928. As it approached its centenary, with cancer incidence rising on the back of an ageing population, the organisation needed a clear, shared plan for its next chapter: one that would keep it the state's charity of choice and lift its impact across everything it does. That is harder than it sounds. Cancer Council South Australia is a large, much loved organisation working across three very different fields at once, prevention, research and support. The challenge was to turn a complex, multi-stream organisation into one clear direction that the board, the team, volunteers, donors and partners could all understand, believe in and own.

What we did

Over six months, we designed a brand new three-year strategy from the ground up, then helped the organisation start putting it into practice. We began by listening and learning, running stakeholder workshops alongside desktop research and analysis. Rather than starting with the plan, we started with the destination, helping the organisation picture the story it could tell at its 100th birthday, then working backwards to design the strategy that would earn it. From that foundation we built a complete strategy architecture: a single sharpened purpose, three pillars (prevention, research and support), the outcomes each is striving towards, and five enablers (people, advocacy, technology, investment and fundraising). We distilled the whole strategy into a single Strategy on a Page and built a Year One roadmap that maps the work quarter by quarter.

The impact

Cancer Council South Australia came away with a clear, shared strategy, one purpose understood the same way from the boardroom to the front line. The Strategy on a Page gives every team, volunteer and partner a single reference, and the Year One roadmap turns intent into immediate action, at a pivotal moment in the organisation's history.

Deliverables

Stakeholder workshops with the board, staff, volunteers and partners

Desktop research and sector analysis

A centenary visioning exercise to define the destination

Full strategy architecture: purpose, pillars, outcomes and enablers

Values and behaviours

Strategy on a Page

Quarter by quarter Year One roadmap

Implementation support

Case studies