Making a Wish

What a difference a decade has made for the Women in Insurance Cancer Crusade (WICC). In March 2006, WICC will be holding its 10th anniversary dinner bash, having raised more than $2.2 million in support of breast cancer research since Mabel Sansom and Linda Matthews founded WICC in 1996.

“Our first event [in 2006] will be our dinner, our annual fundraising dinner in March, which I would say will be a little more splashy than we’ve done in the past because it is our tenth anniversary,” says Carolyn Horan, who co-chairs WICC along with Linda Wahrer. “Everything we do next year will revolve around our tenth anniversary.”

WICC now has chapters in Ontario, B.C. and Alberta, with additional fundraising support in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. Once a simple grassroots initiative that included local candle sales, it’s now a non-profit society organization. In 2004, WICC Ontario incorporated and currently has the following board of directors: Carolyn Horan, Informco Inc., Linda Wahrer, Munich Reinsurance Company, Diane Baxter of Chubb Insurance, Carla Blackmore of Zurich Canada, Jean Faulkner of the Vero Group, Barbara Haynes of Canada Brokerlink, Heather Matthews of Crawford Adjusters Canada, Steve Wilson of Canadian Underwriter magazine, and executive director Lyna Newman of KRG Insurance Brokers. Bill Blakeney of Blakeney Henneberry Murphy provides legal counsel to WICC. Most recently, WICC has branched out nationally with its national sponsorship campaign.

NATIONAL SPONSORS

Thanks in part to WICC’s high profile within the P & C industry, the national sponsorship program has turned out to be an easy sell. When WICC first rolled out its sponsorship program in 2004, seven major industry players pledged the highest sponsorship level, the Platinum level. Platinum-level donors commit to making an annual $15,000 contribution to WICC over a three-year period beginning in 2005.

The seven Platinum level sponsors include Canada Brokerlink, The Dominion of Canada General Insurance Company, Lombard Canada, Royal & SunAlliance Canada, Crawford Adjusters Canada, McKellar Structured Settlements, and CertifiedFirst Network of PPG Canada.

IN THE BEGINNING…

Looking back, Wahrer says, it was difficult to conceive 10 years ago the broad support that exists today for WICC within the P & C industry. “I’ve certainly been attending WICC events right from the very beginning,” she says. “I remember the very first dinner, there were 150 people there. That was probably the extent of it.”

In the beginning, WICC had a strong following in the broker and insurance areas. Wahrer says she was initially recruited as a means of getting the reinsurance industry involved. She joined the WICC board in 1997 and became co-chair in 2000.

Wahrer and Horan both say it’s been gratifying to watch the organization grow to the point where it is now known within the P & C industry across the country.

“It’s been really rewarding to watch that happen,” says Wahrer. ” I remember the first few WICC events. You’d tell somebody in the office, ‘I’m going to a WICC breakfast, or a WICC dinner,’ and they’d say, ‘What?’ You’d have to explain what the acronym was and means. Now, you just have to say ‘a WICC event’ and everybody knows what it is.”

Horan says the challenge is for WICC to become known as well by people outside the insurance industry. “A dream for us would be that we would get known across Canada as the charity that represents the P & C [industry] across Canada,” she says. She adds she is confident Canadians will soon “recognize the P & C industry for the contributions that they’re making to cancer research.”

WICC is involved in raising awareness of a disease that kills 1,337 Canadians every week, according to the Canadian Cancer Society. In 2004, recognizing that men in the P & C industry “stepped up to contribute towards a female’s devastating cancer,” WICC expanded its mandate to fundraise in support of prostate cancer research.

CANCER FIGHT GETS PERSONAL

Like many people in the industry, Wahrer and Horan have had personal experiences supporting friends or relatives with cancer. “Cancer is a cause that is near and dear to my heart,” says Horan. “My grandmother passed away from breast cancer when my father was seven. My aunt passed away from cancer when she was 40 and my cousin was 15. And then my other grandmother passed away from cancer at 60. I know my family is really happy that I’m doing this. It’s my own way to give back and hopefully make cancer history.”

Horan believes people in the P & C insurance industry are especially supportive because they are so used to helping others in times of dire need. “There’s something about the P & C industry,” she says. “People in it are what I would call ‘people people,’ because they help people when they have a claim… One of the reasons we’ve been so successful is that the people that work in the industry want to help others. They are inspired by [WICC’s initiatives] because it’s another way that they can [help others] outside of their job as well.”

In addition to its own fundraising efforts, WICC receives contributions from grassroots donors and corporate initiatives. For example, in 2004, Crawford Adjusters Canada’s ‘Crawford Cares’ initiative – a combination of company events and payroll deductions – resulted in a $50,000 donation to WICC. Also, an ACE-INA Breast Cancer Survivor Contest raised almost $7,000 for WICC. In 2005, ‘A Night at the Races,’ organized by Fred DeFrancesco and William Blakeney, generated $30,000. And ING Insurance held a marathon in Ottawa that raised more than $16,000. (More fundraising examples can be found at www.wicc.ca.)

WICC Ontario holds three stable events each year. One is a public awareness and education event. The other two annual events – the dinner and WICC golf tournament – are more specifically fundraising events. Last year, these three events raised a total of more than $250,000.

Since WICC’s inception, the Canadian Cancer Society has raised $58 million nationally. WICC nationally has contributed 3.8% (or $2.2 million) of this total.

This year, WICC may be the recipient of funds generated by the Insurance Bureau of Canada (IBC)’s Operation Red Nose awareness campaign, said Horan and Wahrer. Operation Red Nose is taking place in Alberta, Ontario, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia.

“They have chosen WICC to be the charity that the fundraising of that goes to,” says Horan. “They expect, based on Operation Red Nose’s success in the past, to raise about $30,000 per location. I find that exciting because part of our goal is to get the whole industry involved. And to get the IBC to want to donate to us shows the synergies in our missions.”

FUNDRAISING IN 2006

What other fundraisers can the P & C industry expect to see from WICC Ontario in 2006? That’s for the February 2006 strategy meeting to decide. But Horan and Wahrer say they are taking a close look at the successful Change for Change campaign run by the WICC B.C. chapter. Put simply, in B.C.’s Change for Change, insurance companies place boxes inside their offices for one month; employees throw whatever change they can spare inside the boxes.

“B.C. has raised it to a competition level between insurers, brokers, law firms, and adjusters, so it becomes quite a competition to see during that month who can raise the most with these boxes in Change for Change,” says Wahrer. “Eventually, I’d like to see that across the country. If you walked into every broker’s office, every adjuster’s office, every insurance company office, and reinsurance company office, you would see a Change for Change box at the reception across the country for one month.

“That would just be amazing. We’d like to see that. There will certainly be something around our 10th anniversary to celebrate that.”

And yes, fundraising targets in 2006 are expected to increase. “We have much more aggressive fundraising goals to coincide with the tenth anniversary,” says Wahrer. “Our annual objective next year will be upped somewhat, because it is our 10th anniversary.”

That target will no doubt be the subject of next February’s planning session. But if 2004’s target of $300,000 is any indication, the goal for 2006 should be quite hefty. As WICC’s 2004 annual report notes, “Our dream is to present the Canadian Cancer Society with a cheque of $1 million by 2008.”