Building foundations for the future

As well as meaning we could not fund as much research, the impact of the pandemic on our income meant we had to make difficult decisions to ensure we were financially sustainable, and so in September we reduced our number of staff from 120 to 87. This was incredibly difficult for everyone at Blood Cancer UK, but we approached it with openness, transparency, and a commitment to support both those who were leaving and those who were staying.

We have also focused on supporting people through the transition to everybody working from home, including having weekly checkins with staff, weekly all-staff meetings, Q&As with the executive team, improved internal communications, and trialling things like wellbeing days and early finishing to try to prevent burnout.

We have also had open conversations about work-life balance and the importance of switching off, and gave every member of staff extra annual leave to recognise the extraordinary efforts they have put in to support people with blood cancer through the pandemic.

Also, when our staff were on furlough and so were not getting their full salary, our leadership team agreed to a temporary pay cut in solidarity with them.

Given the challenge of COVID-19, one of our proudest achievements of 2020/21 was our staff engagement. In the last staff survey before the pandemic, in December 2019, 82% of our staff said they would recommend us as a place to work. But by March 2021, despite us having gone through a significant restructure and a year of extraordinary challenges that has sometimes felt like our staff have given more of themselves than seemed reasonable, this had increased to 95%.

Best Companies also rated our staff engagement as three stars meaning we have “world-class” engagement. This has been achieved through always focusing on our values, and through a programme of staff engagement that has built a sense of belonging, camaraderie, at the same time as expecting people to take accountability for their area of work and to identify how we can maximise our impact for people affected by blood cancer.

Just before the start of 2020/21 we changed our operating name from Bloodwise to Blood Cancer UK, as this would better reflect what we do and make it easier for people affected by blood cancer to find us. We had originally planned a big launch for the new brand and website, but the fact it happened in the middle of the pandemic meant that no longer felt appropriate.

Instead, we changed our name in a low-key way, and a big concern was whether not having a launch campaign would mean we would miss the chance to let people affected by blood cancer know about us. But instead, the work we did to communicate our work around the pandemic, whether sharing information or campaigning for change, helped extend our reach beyond what we could have hoped for with a traditional brand launch.

We appeared regularly in the national media, with spokespeople interviewed on BBC News and Sky News, and our work featuring regularly in national newspapers. Our new, more user-friendly website also helped us reach more people, as the 1.2 million website visits across the year represented a 17% increase on the previous year.

All this meant we were able to raise awareness throughout the year of us as an organisation and the issues facing our community. Before we changed our operating name, awareness of Bloodwise among the general public was 7%, as measured by YouGov, but by the end of March 2021 public awareness for Blood Cancer UK was 29%. Awareness among people affected by blood cancer is even higher, standing at 40% by the end of the year. This is an achievement we are proud of, though this is still not nearly high enough to ensure we are able to reach everyone we need to.

We also celebrated our charity’s 60th anniversary in 2020, with a double page feature about it in the Sunday People newspaper. This feature paid tribute to how Blood Cancer UK was started after the Eastwood family, whose daughter Susan had died of leukaemia, read about some blood cancer research in the Sunday People.

We also marked the anniversary by publishing a report into the impact our research has had over the last 60 years, setting out how the breakthroughs we have funded in different types of blood cancer have saved many thousands of lives.

We carried out research into people with blood cancer’s experience of their condition, which means we now have a better understanding than ever about their needs. This work gives us the foundation for significantly improving our health information and support services over the next few years.

Along with our new name, we launched a new set of organisational values that articulated what has made Blood Cancer UK so successful over the last 60 years. These are:

We are determined, focused on a clear vision. We are motivated, practical and passionate to do all we can to make the lives of those affected by blood cancer better and to ultimately find a cure for blood cancers.

We are one caring family. We work together to raise funds and awareness, to inform and look after people affected by blood cancer. We value each other’s contribution. We work as one.

We have empathy, we listen, we see things from the perspective of others. We take ownership to address issues and solve problems. We do all we can to help and support others.

We are experts in our field. We share our knowledge and use our expertise to help get the best outcomes for those affected by blood cancer. We build understanding.

These are the values that guide all our decisions, and during 2020/21 a big focus has been on reinforcing these to our staff and our community. Every member of staff was involved in creating a values behaviour framework, which sets out practical examples of how staff can demonstrate these values in their daily work. We have started a “values star of the month” award, where we recognise members of staff whose work has been exceptional in how it has displayed one of these values.

We are delighted by how these have quickly become a core part of our work. In our most recent staff survey, in March 2021, 92% of our staff said these values guide how they work and act, and 97% agreed that our Leadership Team demonstrates our values.

Underpinning all of these values is a commitment to put people affected by blood cancer at the heart of our work. Over the last year people affected by blood cancer have shaped our policy work through our Policy Panel. People’s views on what is important to them have been central to the development of our research priorities as part of the research strategy development.

Also, the success of our Walk of Light event was the result of it being tested with people affected by blood cancer at every stage of its development.

Our group of 77 Ambassadors, people affected by blood cancer who represent us externally and advise us internally, has also continued to be an important part of our work. There were 257 activities across the year involving our Ambassadors, including appearing in the media and meeting with politicians.

When the pandemic meant our offices suddenly had to shut, we were well prepared because the work we had already done in improving our IT meant that switching to everyone working from home happened easily.

A key project for us in 2020/21 was developing a new Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system to help us improve how well we contact people in the way that best meets their needs. This will enable us to be better at giving people the support they need at the right time and to tell people about ways to fundraise that best suit their interests. The new CRM was developed throughout the year and we launched it a few days into 2021/22, on time and on budget.