AYA@USC Fundraising Campaign

Dr. Stuart Siegel, a pediatric oncology pioneer who headed Children's Hospital Los Angeles, founded AYA@USC — the first program of its kind in the United States, built for adolescent and young adult cancer patients. It's a demographic consistently overlooked in research funding, treatment options, and supportive services. The program needed a fundraising campaign strong enough to start changing that.

Let the patients speak for themselves rather than have anyone speak about them. The cornerstone was a traditional film spotlighting the personal stories of young people who were undergoing or had completed cancer treatment — their adversity and their resilience. A companion 360 production brought audiences face-to-face with the same individuals in a more intimate, vulnerable format, built to foster empathy and a deeper understanding of their journeys.

I came to AYA@USC through a personal connection — a colleague whose daughter was a cancer survivor, saved by the extraordinary efforts of Dr. Siegel. That made the work personal from the start. I led the campaign strategy and the production of its media assets.

We built a comprehensive fundraising strategy around a suite of media assets designed to drive awareness and inspire action. The anchor film carried the campaign's reach; the 360 piece put viewers in the room with the patients. Every element traced back to the patients' own accounts.

The campaign gave AYA@USC assets purpose-built to raise awareness and move donors, told entirely in the patients' own voices. For a program serving a community this underserved, that visibility was the point.