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Starting this year on November 28 and running through December 10, ESPN’s annual V Week fundraiser for cancer research finds the network reorienting its programming to raise money for the V Foundation for Cancer Research. 

During the 17th annual V Week, the network is also recognizing the 30-year anniversary of the V Foundation, which was established in conjunction with former North Carolina State University men’s basketball coach Jim Valvano.

A longtime coach who won the 1983 NCAA men’s basketball championship, Valvano was diagnosed with metastatic adenocarcinoma, a type of cancer that affects glandular tissues and spreads to other parts of the body. In March of 1993, Valvano accepted the Arthur Ashe Courage and Humanitarian Award at the inaugural ESPY Awards and delivered a moving 11-minute speech discussing his diagnosis while also imploring others to treasure life.

Valvano’s plea, “Don’t give up. Don’t ever give up,” has become the motto of his namesake organization.

Since its inception, the V Foundation has raised more than $353 million for cancer research and distributed nearly 1,200 grants. Like other organizations benefiting cancer research, the V Foundation has adapted its marketing and outreach with modern times, taking on a more agile and active presence to reach donors of all ages as consumers increasingly view content on different, non-linear TV mediums.

Overseeing this critical task is the V Foundation’s chief marketing officer Roger Ferguson. A three-decade marketing veteran, Ferguson arrived at the organization in March after spending 23 years at Capital One.

Acknowledging his status as a relative newcomer to the cancer charity research space, Ferguson says he pushed back retirement to take on the opportunity with the V Foundation. 

While charitable fundraising may differ from the for-profit work of a financial services company, Ferguson notes that at the end of the day, the principles remain the same. In other words: marketing is still marketing.

One of his primary objectives is to make the V Foundation a healthcare brand that is easy to recognize, remember and choose. To accomplish this, he believes the organization must build upon its existing brand equity and attract a younger, more diverse audience.

“We haven’t even come close to writing the final chapters of where we need to go as an organization. As a marketer, that’s what excites me,” he says.

The “blowfish strategy”

Though he may not be working with the sizable budget he had at Capital One, Ferguson says the V Foundation benefits from having ESPN as a broadcast partner. The foundation has also engaged Pepsi, Bristol Myers Squibb and Hooters, among other partner brands, to extend the reach of the V Foundation’s mission.

Ferguson says the organization has attempted to leverage its brand ambassadors to share their stories, either as survivors, caretakers or cancer researchers, to convey the V Foundation’s message across social and digital channels. He characterizes this as a “blowfish strategy” of making a small paid media budget look even bigger.

Cancer awareness takeover in 2023 

In Ferguson’s first year, the V Foundation has continued to rely on its bread-and-butter tactic: fundraising through major sports-related endeavors. He notes that the organization called upon athletes Indianapolis Colts lineman Quenton Nelson and Philadelphia Phillies shortstop Trea Turner to promote the cause.

During the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, the V Foundation aired a one-minute spot featuring a cancer researcher delivering an inspiring halftime speech to former Duke University men’s basketball coach and board member Mike Krzyzewski. The commercial was created by ad agency Connelly Partners. 

In October, the organization collaborated with the National Hockey League for the 25th anniversary of the Hockey Fights Cancer initiative to raise money for research efforts.

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Just this week, the V Foundation hosted the BOO-YAH fundraising event in New York City to shine a light on racial health disparities in cancer outcomes. Its moniker comes from the catchphrase of former SportsCenter anchor Stuart Scott, who was diagnosed with appendix cancer and honored with the Jimmy V Award for Perseverance at the 2014 ESPY Awards. After his death in early 2015, the V Foundation and ESPN established the Stuart Scott Memorial Cancer Research Fund. 

Extending and expanding the legacy

Ferguson says he has been most impressed by the passion of the foundation’s community. Nearly everyone has been affected by cancer in some way, he notes, and people who support the organization do so with the hope that their efforts and resources will eventually lead to more effective treatments and, hopefully, a cure.

Ferguson said the V Foundation has two strategic goals for the months and years ahead: turbocharging the amount of funding for cancer research and amplifying stories of survivorship.

“We’re a small, well-known brand, but we’re not like some of the big charities that have been around for a lot longer and have hundreds of millions dollars in budgets,” he says. “So that’s how we look at it: How can we be nimble and use others in a good way to help get our message out?”