The Pan-Mass Challenge (PMC) is a bike-a-thon across Massachusetts – the world's single most successful athletic fundraiser. With over 6,800 riders and 3,500 volunteers, the PMC community shares one mission: to raise as much money as possible for cancer research and treatment at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (Dana-Farber). In 2024, the organization approached a historic milestone – $1 billion in total fundraising since 1980. This moment presented an unparalleled opportunity to celebrate the PMC’s legacy while inspiring future riders, donors and partners to join the cause.
The campaign’s purpose: celebrate the $1 billion milestone, underscore the importance of continued fundraising for cancer and amplify awareness of the PMC’s contributions to groundbreaking cancer research over the last 45 years.
The team aimed to:
The One in a Billion campaign united earned, paid and digital storytelling, spotlighting the “first billion” raised – and rallying communities to drive donations and awareness for the next billion. Through extensive research, strong media relations and marketing, the team sought to inspire participation and philanthropy across the country.
The “One in a Billion” strategy was built on a single, ambitious idea: celebrate a historic fundraising milestone by showing the world what’s possible when purpose and perseverance collide. To do this, the team developed a year-long campaign strategy designed to engage hearts, open wallets, and inspire action.
Phase 1: Strategy and Narrative Development
The team dove deep into 45 years of PMC and Dana-Farber history, working with doctors, researchers, riders and PMC Founder Billy Starr to identify stories that connected fundraising to real-world medical breakthroughs – especially those supported by PMC dollars, such as FDA-approved cancer treatments, pediatric research, and clinical trials.
The team uncovered stories that transcended traditional fundraising promotion, for example: a father riding for his daughter in remission; a cancer patient participating in her tenth PMC mid-treatment; the visionary behind it all (Billy Starr) still leading the charge as a rider and fundraiser decades later.
Phase 2: Execution and Amplification
With an arsenal of impactful stories and a clear campaign theme – “One in a Billion” – the team launched a highly targeted multichannel strategy. Earned media was a cornerstone – reaching local, regional, and national media with tailored pitches that humanized the milestone. Stories were timed to rider registration, World Cancer Day, and the moment the $1 billion threshold was crossed. Coverage was carefully positioned across media tiers – from hyper-local stories that fueled organic social sharing, to national features that brought unprecedented attention to the PMC. In a media environment crowded with noise, the PMC broke through with substance.
The campaign also extended to paid and owned media. The PMC created compelling content, such as a short documentary “Origin Story” around the rides’ beginnings and growth that led to $1 billion raised, boosted by paid programming to attract new riders and donors. Owned social channels amplified storytelling year-round with similar compelling content, rider testimonials and cancer research breakthroughs funded in part by the PMC.
Challenges and Impact
One challenge was translating 45 years of history into stories that felt urgent and current. The team tackled this by grounding every narrative in lived experience – patients, riders, doctors – bringing emotional depth to the campaign with real people. Another challenge was scaling the message nationally while keeping its regional authenticity. By pairing national storytelling with localized rider spotlights, the team achieved both.
The “One in a Billion” campaign didn’t just mark a milestone – it made it matter. It inspired engagement, impact, and set the stage for the next billion raised to cure cancer.
The “One in a Billion” campaign delivered powerful proof of what inspired storytelling can do for a mission-driven organization. The result? A record-breaking $75 million raised by the PMC community in 2024 – Dana-Farber’s largest single donation ever received– along with hundreds of new riders and volunteers joining the cause.
Earned media amplified the campaign’s storytelling. The campaign generated more than 1.5K placements and 459M impressions, in national outlets and regional media across 41 states. Coverage highlights included an earned CBS Mornings four-minute feature segment, spotlighting the milestone and five other national placements focused on key storytelling themes in the Agents of Nonprofit podcast, Bicycling Magazine, Medium.com’s Entrepreneur Hub, Parade, and CafeMom. Additionally, regional coverage spotlighted dozens of compelling rider stories and features on the organization and its leadership, including two features with The Boston Globe (2).
Paid and owned content helped the PMC to reach new audiences and mobilize riders, volunteers and donors. Through targeted advertising across Meta (Facebook and Instagram), TikTok and YouTube, the campaign’s paid social efforts reached 2.6 million users and generated 14.3 million impressions. Most importantly, this translated awareness into action – resulting in 310 new rider registrations directly attributed to the campaign.
The campaign also increased executive visibility for PMC Founder Billy Starr – he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from NonProfit PRO, was included on Boston Magazine’s list of the Most Influential Bostonians of 2024 and was a featured speaker at the TEDxBoston conference in 2024.
