The mission of The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society of Canada (LLSC) is: Cure leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin's disease and myeloma, and improve the quality of life of patients and their families.
Our strategy to achieve the mission is based on three areas of focus: research, patient support and advocacy. In 2017, we invested almost $7.4 million in the creation of programs and delivery of services to improve the lives of Canadians affected by blood cancers from coast to coast. This investment included a commitment of over $4.1 million in innovative, life-changing research to accelerate new cancer treatments, therapies, and cures; and $3.3 million towards funding patient services, programs and education across Canada.
We do not charge patients, caregivers or healthcare professionals anything for any of the programs or materials we provide to them, but everything we do has costs associated with it. We do our best to minimize costs, while still ensuring the quality of the program or resource.
Research
LLSC contributed over $4 million to research in 2017. This was a 37% increase from the previous year of $3 million.
Patient Services/Education
LLSC is extremely proud of the important work our staff and volunteers do to support thousands of patients and their families who are facing the diagnosis of a blood cancer, to help them survive and, hopefully, be cured.
Patient support includes:
- 15 Support Groups functioning across Canada
- Trish Greene Back-to-School helps educators and parents ensure children have the optimal back to school experience after cancer treatment
- Over 300 First Connection matches where patients are connected one-to-one with a highly-trained survivor for peer support
- Patient education programs covering a wide spectrum of topics from disease-specific (i.e. Understanding Leukemia) to coping mechanisms (i.e. strategies to help with stress & anxiety) to research advances (i.e. The Future of CLL Treatment in Canada) to survivorship issues (i.e. Dealing with Treatment-Related Infertility)
- Providing one-on-one information & support to patients/caregivers
- Connecting patients to community resources so they have as much support as possible through their cancer experience
- Printed disease information dissemination to patients directly or through healthcare organizations (hospitals, cancer centres and other non-profit organizations
Public Education
LLSC is proud of the millions of program dollars we spend annually educating Canadians - including healthcare professionals - about the challenges of these daunting diseases and the resources that we provide to them for free.
Public education includes:
- Communication materials and online resources designed to inform the public about blood cancers
- Educational information sessions for healthcare professionals and non-patient groups
- Creation/distribution of community resource guides
- Writing health articles & updates
- Health exhibits at fairs, professional conferences, etc. For instance, LLSC exhibits at the Canadian Association of Nurses in Oncology help ensure nurses are aware of how LLSC can support their patient care efforts.
- Participating and/or conducting health education training for staff and volunteers
- Gathering data and reporting on relevant health issues and statistics on blood cancers
- Providing the patient voice to the oncology drug approval process
Our Plan for Growth
We can't achieve our mission without the support of our volunteers, donors, partners and sponsors. We'll continue to reach out to these generous contributors this year to help increase our net revenue.
Our plans to do this include:
- Have volunteers participate more than ever in all our revenue-generating activities. We're encouraging our volunteers to contribute their talents and relationships to growing LLSC events and asking their friends, families, co-workers and everyone they know to become LLSC sponsors, team members and participants.
- Continue to offer corporations and organizations tangible reasons aligned with their business goals to partner with LLSC through sponsorships, special promotions, co-branding and more.
- Build our donor pipeline and thank our donors for their generosity in meaningful ways.
Our Promise
LLSC will continue to evolve as a world-class organization by engaging our staff, volunteers and partners to strengthen and expand our effectiveness across all programs.
You Can Help!
Learn how you can help improve the lives of people with blood cancer: See Ways to Help.