Project Overview
The fight against cancer is one that the world has been dealing with for centuries. While scientists have found some ways to combat it — chemotherapy, for example — there still is no definitive cure for the disease. Although many innovators regularly come up with new treatments, solutions, and even cures for some forms of cancer, the number one thing they face is the lack of funds necessary to bring their innovations to the market.
In response to this issue, Dr. Mona Jhaveri founded Music Beats Cancer (formerly known as Sound Affects), a charitable 501(c)(3) crowdfunding platform created to help these innovators access the funds they need to further their solutions through the charitable donations of the crowd. Music Beats Cancer strategically partners with emerging musical artists to help raise funds and awareness in the ongoing fight against cancer.
Dr. Jhaveri approached Otter PR with a want for more people to visit the Music Beats Cancer website and make a donation to an active cancer-fighting campaign that inspires them. Monies raised from Music Beats Cancer partnered artists support the charity’s Community Mega Fund, a fund dedicated to matching the crowd’s donations dollar for dollar. Her goal was to raise awareness and inspire new artists to get involved with the organization to raise money.
The Problem
Dr. Jhaveri started her career as a cancer researcher and later moved into the biotech industry. There, she quickly realized that raising funds to advance treatments and solutions against cancer is extremely difficult — if not impossible. After receiving her doctoral degree in biochemistry, she went on to do postdoctoral training at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) where she made a discovery in the lab that could help treat ovarian cancer, one of the deadliest cancers for women worldwide.
After accessing the patent rights to the technology from the NCI, she launched a biotech start-up company, Foligo Therapeutics Inc., in an effort to continue developing the technology. Over time, fundraising for Foligo became extremely difficult and the company, along with its technology for fighting ovarian cancer, succumbed to the ”Valley of Death” — a metaphorical place where great ideas go to die when they lack the critical funds to move forward.
As a consequence, the Valley of Death impedes progress in reducing the enormous burden the world faces in the fight against cancer; however, the public largely remains unaware of this challenge. The loss of Foligo inspired Dr. Jhaveri to launch Music Beats Cancer as a means to support biotech entrepreneurs who are working on cancer-fighting technologies that are at risk of disappearing into the Valley of Death, simply because they lack the necessary funds.
The Strategy
We began forming our comprehensive media strategy by presenting Dr. Jhaveri as a thought leader in the war on cancer. We used her passion and expertise to educate people about the “Valley of Death” and the research being done to help find treatments for different types of cancer. Our team also connected with each of the artists that had partnered with Music Beats Cancer to help share their stories, which garnered substantial media attention in their respective regions.
Additionally, we utilized the biotech companies fundraising through Music Beats Cancer’s platform, connecting with their scientists and leaders to tell their stories and educate the public about why they are raising money, and what for. In this strategy, we found that Music Beats Cancer gained such a wide reach because they are not only a non-profit organization but one that incorporates health and music into its platform. This allowed us to reach an audience much broader than expected.
Business Impact (results)
Since being onboarded as a client with Otter PR, Dr. Jhaveri was able to receive dozens of pieces of individual media coverage for Music Beats Cancer and its partners. Their story has been featured in multiple top-tier national publications, including a feature in TIME Magazine’s special issue “The Future of Medicine,” AP News, Healthline, The Chicago Tribune, Psychiatric Times, The US Sun, NY Weekly, LA Weekly, Fox News, New York Post, and more. Our team was also able to land interviews and speaking engagements for Dr. Jhaveri with NewsNation, KITV in Hawaii, WGN-TV in Chicago, WJLA in Washington D.C., and many other national television outlets.
As a result of these efforts, Dr. Jhaveri has seen an exponential increase in the funds raised on Music Beats Cancer’s crowdfunding platform for biotech companies doing research. She has also had the opportunity to share her story both nationally and internationally, which has reached more musicians who have expressed a desire to get involved with Music Beats Cancer.