Strategy development for Wegwijzer bij kanker foundation

Guidance to suitable (after)care and support with cancer  

Project Overview

Receiving the cancer diagnosis tends to turn someone’s life upside down. Also, after the cancer treatment, life does not simply return to normal. The hospital and doctor visits stop, but many people still face challenges or have questions, and often do not know who to turn to for answers. The foundation Wegwijzer bij Kanker aims to offer them support and guidance.  

The foundation has started with a pilot project in the Dutch region Zaanstreek-Waterland: a user-friendly website was created, which shows the various options for (after)care and support in the region, in a clear overview. Various regional care providers were involved to give short video explanations of what they do.

Next to visiting the website people can also get in touch with a helpdesk (phone/chat/email), where trained volunteers help them find what they need.  

After the successful launch of the website and helpdesk in September 2022, the foundation needed to develop clarity on their strategy; identifying the priorities for further development and scaling up, as well as a plan for developing a sustainable financial model.  

Action and Impact

In October 2022, Michel Daenen, director of the foundation, asked Liesbeth Scholten, lead practitioner at Heartbeat Ventures, for help with preparing a strategy session with 10 key stakeholders. Our role was to help design the creative process for the strategy session, so that it would be engaging for the participants and lead to concrete outcomes. These should form the basis of a three-year plan. Liesbeth participated in the session, bringing in relevant knowledge from earlier work on informal cancer care. She also supported Michel Daenen and facilitator Jan Vos van Marken with the facilitation process. 

In the session the key strategic challenges were identified, for increasing the foundation’s impact and reach, building the organization and developing a sustainable financial model. Immediately after the session we pulled the results together in a workshop report. We also created a visual overview of the prioritized strategic goals and action plans. This enabled Michel Daenen to make the 3-year plan for the future of Wegwijzer bij Kanker and start constructive discussions with partners and financers towards realization. 

Contact person: Liesbeth Scholten