Transforming advocacy & donor management: how ACS CAN drove impact through innovation
Overview
Advocating to end cancer as we know it, for everyone
The American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network (ACS CAN) is the nation’s leading advocacy organization dedicated to fighting cancer through public policy. As the advocacy affiliate of the renowned American Cancer Society, ACS CAN focuses on changing laws at the federal, state, and local levels to benefit those impacted by cancer.
Through its strategic advocacy, the organization strives to ensure more people receive timely and accurate cancer diagnoses, along with access to affordable, high-quality care. ACS CAN also champions preventive measures designed to lower cancer rates, including advocating for increased federal funding for cancer research and working to implement and expand smoke-free laws across the country.
Customer profile
Product: Bonterra EveryAction and Bonterra DonorDrive
Sector: Nonprofit
Vertical: Healthcare
The challenge
After more than 15 years with the same technology, ACS CAN faced significant challenges with outdated, stagnant systems that hindered its mission-critical advocacy and fundraising work.
The organization previously used one platform for advocacy efforts and constituent communications, with separate software to complement fundraising campaigns. With a noticeable lack of investment in product enhancements, ACS CAN’s systems became plagued by bugs, poor support escalations, and minimal focus on changing with the times and evolving supporter needs. Over time, the team realized their technology wasn’t keeping pace with their needs or the expectations of their constituents.
Brittany Larson, Director of Digital Strategy and Engagement at ACS CAN, and Molly Waite, Senior Development Manager of Peer-to-Peer Fundraising, knew their funder and constituent audiences deserved experiences that met modern expectations.
“Staff throughout the organization had also realized that our systems were old, and that they didn’t work for us as they should have,” said Brittany.
This technological stagnation directly impacted the team’s effectiveness. Simple tasks such as creating email lists and campaigns for state-level initiatives would take four hours, pulling staff away from vital community engagement. The organization’s systems also offered limited engagement tools and lacked a native SMS integration, the latter forcing the use of an additional system for text-based campaigns.
The entire process of launching a major campaign of any kind felt daunting. In many ways, ACS CAN’s technology stack inhibited how supporters could interact with the organization’s work.
ACS CAN needed to partner with a new vendor that could provide a modern, innovative, and unified platform. With organizational buy-in, budget, and capacity finally aligned, Brittany, Molly, and the team were ready to make a transformational change to a system that could support their ambitious advocacy and fundraising goals.
The solution
Recognizing that their existing technology was holding back their advocacy and fundraising potential, ACS CAN sought a comprehensive solution that could modernize their operations. They needed a partner that would not only replace their antiquated tools but also provide a unified, innovative platform to empower dozens of their users and on-the-ground organizers to work more efficiently.
Bonterra EveryAction provided the transformative digital infrastructure ACS CAN needed to revolutionize its advocacy and communication workstreams.
One of the most significant efficiencies gained was at the state level. Grassroots Managers, who are responsible for organizing campaigns, recruiting volunteers, and coordinating communications at the state and local levels, didn’t have the time to spend endless hours on training to learn how to work around a system. They needed an intuitive platform that could guide them in creating and promoting critical advocacy opportunities.
The introduction of EveryAction’s drag-and-drop email and form templates streamlined the creation of branded assets, allowing staff throughout the organization to quickly distribute critical information when breaking news emerged from state legislatures. This shift saved Grassroots Managers a significant amount of time, freeing them to focus on the critical community engagement component of their roles.
To further enhance state-level operations, Brittany and her team created a custom dashboard for each state’s engagement, enabling managers to monitor activity in real-time. Sophistication in advocacy campaigns also leveled up significantly with EveryAction’s integrated SMS campaigns. This game-changing feature brought text campaigns into the constituent journey, eliminating the need for a separate system, as well as the previously segmented data and user experiences. The team leveraged robust automations for integrated email and SMS campaigns, which were used for their welcome and engagement series. This, in turn, replaced the overly complex processes of their previous vendors.
Data integration was another critical piece of the solution. The team set up an integration between EveryAction and Salesforce, where broader American Cancer Society constituent data resides alongside ACS CAN data. This integration allows staff to fully understand their constituents and distinguish between funders and advocates.
For example, if a site visitor accesses the Volunteer Community (powered by Salesforce) to sign up for a volunteer role, that data flows into EveryAction. Offline donations logged in Salesforce also flow into EveryAction, helping the team monitor membership status and donation history. This 360-degree view enables the team to use EveryAction’s AI-powered Optimized Ask Amounts feature: when email or SMS campaigns are launched, EveryAction assesses past giving history to propose a custom giving range for each donor.
While the ACS-CAN team can use this shared dataset to find potential advocates, general ACS staff members can tap into the advocate database to learn more about the current donor base and identify potential donors as well.
Bonterra DonorDrive was also implemented to modernize the fundraising experience, offering new capabilities that were previously unavailable.
The DonorDrive mobile app, which volunteers can now use to fundraise directly, has proven to be a highly beneficial addition. The ability to communicate through the app via email and push notifications helped the team streamline how they engage with their networks.
The transition also provided critical financial flexibility to the organization’s donors. With DonorDrive in place, ACS CAN rolled out several new acceptable payment methods, including credit card, check, Apple Pay, and PayPal.
With these new tools in place, the organization has entered an era of testing and experimenting. The new systems have leveled up the sophistication of their digital campaigns, providing improved data that allows for real-time updates to messaging and segmentation. By saving time through process enhancements, the team can now focus on creating an excellent advocate experience and winning its legislative campaigns. Whenever ACS CAN has questions about either product, the Bonterra customer support team is ready to help.
Since moving to Bonterra, the support team has been excellent. When I use the chat feature or submit tickets, they are quick to get back to me and engage with the issue at hand.
Outcomes
With Bonterra EveryAction in place, the ACS CAN team has unlocked a new level of advocacy capability, converting once-aspirational goals into real outcomes. In addition to driving donations and encouraging advocates to launch fundraisers, the team has leveraged the platform to fundamentally transform how they mobilize their base, allowing them to navigate the complex appropriations process in Congress with unprecedented agility and speed.
This strategic shift is most evident in the team’s recent legislative push. Leveraging EveryAction, ACS CAN advocates successfully sent 75,000 messages to members of Congress over a five-month period, urging legislators to prioritize funding for cancer research and prevention programs in the federal budget. What would have previously been a daunting, resource-intensive task is now a plausible, repeatable strategy.
Beyond volume, the team has deepened the quality of their engagement by leveraging specific touchpoints to enhance segmentation. They can now better target recipients based on actions taken in previous campaigns across mediums and tailor future messaging to match those specific interests. This helps keep their audience informed about critical developments that impact current and future cancer patients through a thoughtful and tailored approach.
The introduction of robust automations has also driven significant efficiencies for state-level staff members. In the case of the organization’s evergreen cancer research campaign, the team deployed an integrated email and SMS strategy that garnered substantial attention.
The ACS CAN team is currently building a set of sophisticated automations that will enable them to identify and cultivate “super action takers” — supporters who consistently sign petitions and contact Congress. By automatically surfacing these high-engagement individuals, ACS CAN hopes to guide them toward additional engagement opportunities. The team plans to target super action takers and encourage them to sign up for conversations with their state’s grassroots manager, become fundraisers, or purchase merchandise from the ACS CAN store.
Bonterra DonorDrive has proven equally impactful, enabling the organization to raise critical funds for advocacy campaigns through a modern, user-centric experience. By providing a better experience for advocates and donors, Bonterra has helped the team drive increased impact and revenue across its constituents.
In 2025, the organization raised over $1 million on DonorDrive from its volunteer base alone. A significant portion of this success—$917,123—came from the “Lights of Hope” campaign. This campaign resulted in 85,000 decorated Lights of Hope bags being displayed across America, serving as a powerful visual representation of the community’s commitment to the cause. Bonterra is proud to have served as one of the sponsors for this impactful initiative.
The DonorDrive mobile app played a pivotal role in this fundraising success, specifically by facilitating three national “Lights of Hope Challenges.” During these events, participants were challenged to raise $100 in 100 hours, recruit a sponsorship, and participate in a regional challenge. The team utilized the app to drive urgency and excitement by adding banners within the mobile experience featuring real-time countdowns. This feature, combined with the app’s seamless interface, empowered volunteers to maximize their fundraising potential and engage their networks more effectively than before.
“If somebody’s having a really hard time taking action because they can’t figure out a form, for example, they’re not going to come back and do it again,” said Brittany.
The effect of us offering such a better experience is that we can reach new heights in terms of the number of advocacy actions we’re seeing and the number of people who are returning to ACS CAN who want to continue to be involved with our organization.
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