Andy Talley, head football coach at Villanova University, learned in 1992 that bone marrow transplant recipients face very long odds. After that, everything changed, and nearly two decades later, The Andy Talley Bone Marrow Foundation was formed. In Fall 2007, Coach Talley conducted his first on-campus drive and registered over 200 student-athletes and coaching staff. With the support of Be the Match, Coach Talley launched the "Get In The Game" campaign and held more drives with other football programs across the country in a push to engage football players off the field and encourage students and staff to join the registry.
Following many years of success, the Andy Talley Bone Marrow Foundation wanted to introduce a new initiative to strengthen their impact. Statistics show that there are approximately 9 million people on the Be The Match registry, yet only 8% of these individuals are black. The odds of a Black person finding a donor are 29% yet this number jumps to 80% odds for white people.
Andy Talley Foundation set a goal to increase the number of Black donors on the Be The Match registry to improve the odds of finding a donor match.
Navitas created a campaign in 2021 called "Our Race Matters. Be the Cure." in conjunction with the Andy Talley Bone Marrow Foundation. We had the opportunity to conduct interviews with former Black donors, who explained the process, how they got involved, and how they feel knowing they're helping to save lives.
We created a new brand for the "Our Race Matters. Be The Cure." campaign, which is reflected on the new landing page on their website and social media graphics to be used to raise awareness of the need for more black donors. Additionally, we established communication to be used by Andy Talley Foundation to solicit HBCUs and other colleges and universities to participate in the program.
As this is an ongoing campaign, we look forward to more data and feedback from Andy Talley Bone Marrow Foundation in the months to come. 2021 was a "soft launch" and has gained great feedback and engagement on social media and their website so far. We eagerly await the official launch of the campaign in 2022.
Be sure to visit the landing page on their website to learn more about the campaign and view the videos we developed to help share how important this initiative is!
