FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Q: How is the Ottawa Regional Cancer Foundation unique?
The Ottawa Regional Cancer Foundation is the ONLY local organization solely committed to raising funds for cancer care, treatment, research, and supportive care programs for our community. We are aligned with the provincial government’s vision to regionalize cancer care and treatment, making quality care available as close to home as possible for patients. The Cancer Foundation partners with area hospitals to help improve access to person-centred care.
Q: What is the Cancer Foundation’s mission?
At the Cancer Foundation, we take cancer personally. It’s a disease that impacts people in very different ways, and we have made it our mission to provide local residents touched by cancer with access to the care that is right for them. Each and every day we are dedicated to helping improve cancer survivorship and empowering cancer patients and their families to be active in their treatment and post-treatment recovery. Our priority is to provide increased access to person-centered care through the Community Cancer Hub, innovative cancer research, and a world-class clinical trials program.
Q: What is the Cancer Champions Campaign?
Over the next three years, the Cancer Foundation’s CANCER CHAMPIONS CAMPAIGN will be the driving force for transforming local cancer care. With your help, we are committed to making local cancer care a priority year-round in Eastern Ontario so that our community has access to the very best personalized care, right here in the region. We will raise $20 million that will directly benefit local cancer patients and help their families at one of the most difficult times in their lives.
There are a number of ways that YOU can become a Cancer Champion and help us reach out $20 million goal:
- Make a donation
- Become a monthly donor
- Participate an event
- Host an event
- Take part in one of our Nutrition and Wellness programs
For more information about how to become a Cancer Champion, please contact 613-247-3527.
Q: What are the Cancer Foundation’s key funding priorities?
The CANCER CHAMPIONS CAMPAIGN will focus on three key priorities:
COMMUNITY CANCER HUB: A one-stop portal for cancer patients in Eastern Ontario and their families. It provides practical information about non-medical services in a patient’s own community to help them, and their families, through various stages of their disease
CLINICAL TRIALS: Ensuring that cancer patients have access to local clinical trials and to the latest treatment options here at home.
CANCER RESEARCH: Ensuring that scientists have the resources to bring their discoveries from bench to bedside for the benefit of cancer patients.
You can help transform local cancer care – join us and become a Cancer Champion. For more information about the Campaign, please contact 613-247-3527.
Q: What is the Community Cancer Hub?
The Community Cancer Hub is a new program that builds off the lessons learned from the Cancer Coaching program. We moved to the “Hub” at the end of March, 2022, after listening to our patients, who wanted a more grassroots, practical support service that caters to the individual non-medical needs of each patient.
The Hub is designed as a one-stop portal for cancer patients in Eastern Ontario and their families. It provides practical information about non-medical services in a patient’s own community to help them, and their families, through various stages of their disease.
Q: What is the status of the relationship with the Queensway Carleton Hospital?
The Ottawa Regional Cancer Foundation has partnered with the Queensway Carleton Hospital and QCH Foundation to raise $7 million specifically for the Irving Greenberg Family Cancer Centre. This will enable an additional 3,000 cancer patients to receive treatment closer to home. The Cancer Foundation created the annual EPIC WALK as a fundraiser for this project. It takes place every September and is the city’s biggest one-day walk at 25+ km.
Q: How did the Ottawa Regional Cancer Foundation support the expansion of the Ottawa Hospital Cancer Centre?
The Ottawa Regional Cancer Foundation, with its donors, is the largest individual philanthropic contributor to the new Ottawa Hospital Cancer Centre, granting $5 million to the expansion of the Cancer Centre at the General Campus. The final installment of $500,000 towards this grant was made in 2013, thus completing the $5 million commitment.
Q: Does the Cancer Foundation fund cancer research?
Cancer is a complex disease that scientists are still working to understand. With your support, the Cancer Foundation dedicates millions of dollars each year towards innovative projects that show incredible promise and may one day be the future of cancer treatment.
Thousands of lives are saved every day because of cancer research; it is essential to transforming cancer care with personalized treatment and targeted therapies. Thanks to donor support, the Cancer Foundation is one of the largest funders of local cancer research. We are helping to build a strong community of highly trained, innovative cancer researchers by providing them with the necessary resources to conduct world-class research and design new therapies that save and extend lives and enabling them to attract and inspire the next generation of scientists.
Improvements in technology have allowed scientists in Ottawa to collaborate with colleagues from around the world, and the results inspire much hope. In local labs, we support cancer researchers like Dr. John Bell, who for two decades has been developing the oncolytic virus, which attacks and kills cancerous cells and leaves the healthy ones intact. The Cancer Foundation is proud to be one of the founding partners in this innovative project; we provided the initial $25,000 to begin Dr. Bell’s research in 2000. Today, his work is attracting international attention for its targeted approach to cancer treatment. Dr. Bell believes that through research, more effective cancer treatments will be developed, which could mean the end of chemotherapy as we currently know it.
Q: Does the Cancer Foundation support clinical trials for cancer patients?
For cancer patients, a clinical trial may offer new hope for reducing the impacts of the disease, extend their lives by months or even years, and, in some cases, see the disease disappear. The Cancer Foundation is one of the only organizations funding local cancer clinical trials and, thanks to our donors, we have supported every cancer clinical trial that has opened in Ottawa in the last six years.
Doctors use clinical trials to take new therapies and methods of treatment that are less invasive and have fewer side effects, and apply them in the clinic. They follow patients throughout the trial to ensure the new treatment options are safe and effective. If the treatment or method is found to have a positive impact and meets the criteria, it eventually becomes standard of care for all cancer patients.
Here in Ottawa, we are fortunate to be developing a centre of excellence for clinical trials that grants access to the very latest treatment options. These trials seek better ways to treat different types of cancer, from the most common – such as breast, prostate and lung cancer – to rare cancers, including glioblastoma, the most common and most aggressive form of brain cancer.
Q: How does the Cancer Foundation’s expenses compare to that of other foundations in our community?
Each year the Cancer Foundation submits its audited financial statements to CRA, which are posted on CRA’s website. The Cancer Foundation is listed with other hospital foundations. While the majority of other organizations listed in this category are strictly fundraising groups, the Cancer Foundation’s model is a hybrid between a fundraising organization and a community-based care centre that delivers patient support.
The administration and salary costs listed on the financials are that of the entire organization, including our cancer support team – nurses, social workers, kinesiologists, nutritionists, and occupational therapists – who are all healthcare professionals employed to deliver the patient support.
If you have any questions about the Cancer Foundation’s financials, please contact 613.247.3527.