Guide Outline

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I have experience with coalition-building, but am new to lung cancer.

I have experience with coalition-building, but am new to lung cancer.

You’ll find suggestions for building a lung cancer-oriented partner network by visiting “Build a network of multi-sector partners and stakeholders”. We’ll guide you from there.

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I need a formal process for my initiative.

Walk through the worksheets for each activity to make sure all your pieces are in place and to see what you might be missing.

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All the pieces are in place but I’m running into roadblocks.

Head to Practical Tips under the challenging activity and the Troubleshooting Guide at the end of each Phase.

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Guide Outline

Phase 2: Strategy and Planning

A

Hold a kickoff meeting or summit to:

  • Discuss the issues, agree on priorities, develop a plan, and secure commitments to move forward
  • .

  • Create a common vision for the initiative
  • Allow stakeholders and partners to weigh in on priorities and goals.
  • Increase engagement and keep partners committed by ensuring all voices are heard. Assign project teams or workgroups.

Go

B

Identify funding and resources to:

  • Clarify what priorities or activities are feasible

Go

C

Establish lung cancer priorities to:

  • Ensure best use of existing or potential resources
  • Engage partners with specific strengths or areas of expertise
  • Form the specific activities of your workplan

Go

D

Develop a vision and set goals to:

  • Align partner ambitions, provide inspiration, and establish a path for future strategic planning
  • Improve the potential for unity and success
  • Form the basis for your action plan

Go

E

Create an action plan to:

  • Keep you on track during implementation
  • Ensure agreement on partner roles and responsibilities<
  • /ul>

Go

Explore Helpful Resources to supplement your work.

  • Worksheets
  • Practical Tips
  • Troubleshooting

Go

Phase 2 - Step A

Hold a Kickoff Meeting or Summit

Holding a kickoff meeting or summit is a critical step in getting your coalition on the same page. This type of event – which can be in-person or virtual – brings partners to the table to discuss the issues, agree on priorities, develop a plan, and secure commitments to move forward. Below are suggestions for planning your kickoff.

Activity

Pre-Meeting Planning

  • Set the meeting goal and objectives (and be solution-oriented)
  • Determine the format of the meeting: virtual or in-person
  • Create an agenda
  • Identify meeting chair and moderators
  • Determine the size of meeting and invitee list
  • Consider if you want to create a pre- or post-meeting survey and what information you want to gather.

Presentations and Speakers

  • Based on the meeting goals and objectives, determine the appropriate thought leaders to speak or moderate on these topics.
  • Determine the format of presentations.
  • Invite speakers and moderators.

Working Groups and Breakout Sessions

  • Identify a task or problems for small groups to discuss.
  • Have groups identify a vision and potential priorities for the initiative.
  • Ensure time for breakout groups to report back to full group for discussion.

Post-Meeting

  • If there was a pre-meeting survey, determine if post-meeting survey is needed.
  • Document goals, action items, assignments, and target dates.
  • Distribute meeting notes to all participants. This follow up captures the momentum; ensures that the great ideas generated at the meeting are recorded; reminds participants of commitments regarding follow up activities; and underscores for attendees that this is a serious effort.
  • Ask attendees to review a draft of the report to ensure accuracy and to maintain a sense of ownership for the launch of the effort.
  • Consider presenting the report in a follow up webinar to further maintain momentum.

Tasks

Set the meeting goal and objectives (and be solution-oriented)

Determine the format of the meeting: virtual or in-person

Create an agenda

Identify meeting chair and moderators

Determine the size of meeting and invitee list

Consider if you want to create a pre- or post-meeting survey and what information you want to gather.

Tasks

Based on the meeting goals and objectives, determine the appropriate thought leaders to speak or moderate on these topics.

Determine the format of presentations.

Invite speakers and moderators.

Tasks

Identify a task or problems for small groups to discuss.

Have groups identify a vision and potential priorities for the initiative.

Ensure time for breakout groups to report back to full group for discussion.

Tasks

If there was a pre-meeting survey, determine if post-meeting survey is needed.

Document goals, action items, assignments, and target dates.

Distribute meeting notes to all participants. This follow up captures the momentum; ensures that the great ideas generated at the meeting are recorded; reminds participants of commitments regarding follow up activities; and underscores for attendees that this is a serious effort.

Ask attendees to review a draft of the report to ensure accuracy and to maintain a sense of ownership for the launch of the effort.

Consider presenting the report in a follow up webinar to further maintain momentum.

Phase 2 - Step b

Identify Funding and Resources

Identifying funding opportunities is a good agenda item for a kickoff meeting. Having all partners involved in brainstorming will result in diverse options to pursue. Please note that depending on your coalition’s structure or members, there may be restrictions on how you fundraise.

Grants

  • CDC
  • American Cancer Society
  • State Department of Health
  • Health systems
  • Foundations
  • Pharma and medical technology companies
  • Insurance companies (e.g., Blue Cross/Blue Shield conversion foundations)

Direct Fundraising

  • Direct mail/email to individual donors/survivors
  • Corporate sponsorships • Amazon Smile donations (for registered 501(c)3 orgs)
  • Events:
    • Races/walks
    • Golf outings
    • Black tie galas/dinners
    • Pub crawls
  • Items:
  • Gift basket raffles
  • Create a calendar for sale
  • Special collection at your place of worship

In-Kind (partners) Resources

  • Administrative staff
  • Technical staff
  • Meeting rooms/donated space
  • Videoconference hosting
  • Grantwriting
  • Communications
  • Advocacy/Lobbying

Virtual Fundraising

  • Birthday challenges on Facebook
  • Virtual walk/runs
  • Silent auction or raffle using web platform (e.g. BidPal)
  • Converting in-person events to virtual events

Phase 2 - Step C

Establish Lung Cancer Priorities

Whether your coalition decides to support existing efforts or fill gaps, the priorities your coalition chooses to pursue should be evidence-based. In some cases, good data may be hard to find, but before you determine our coalition priorities, use the following considerations and sources for data to support your work:
  • State data
  • Active initiatives, ie., state cancer control plan
  • Gaps and needs identified during landscape assessment
  • Partner strengths and priorities
  • Health equity priorities

Health Equity Assessment

What populations (e.g. age, race/ethnicity, SES, location in state or rural/urban/suburban, gender, LGBTQA+, etc.) experience burden/disparities in each area of focus/priority?

Phase 2 - Step d

Set Goals

Once you have chosen your priorities, start thinking about potential goals connected to those priorities. Below is an example of how to organize your goals, with short-term goals building towards long-term goals.

Short Term Goals

Risk Reduction:

Create website with a catalogue of all risk reduction resources in the state.

Create a webinar to educate PCPs about risk reduction activities.

Screening:

Create a brief one-pager on shared decision-making for screening and distribute to PCP offices.

Initiate pilot lung cancer screening awareness campaign for the public.

Create a webinar to educate PCPs about lung cancer screening

Collect data on #s referred, #s screened, and other statistics from all active lung cancer screening sites in the state.

Treatment

Collect data on percentage of patients with advanced lung cancer who receive biomarker testing.

Create a list of available financial assistance options for lung cancer treatment.

Mid-Term Goals

Increase number of people who currently smoke who connect with smoking cessation programs.

Increase knowledge of lung cancer screening in targeted audience.

Increase number or % of eligible population screened

Increase number or % of primary care providers referring eligible patients

Demonstrate increase in biomarker testing in the targeted population.

Long-Term Goals

Decrease overall smoking rates.

Decrease rates of advanced lung cancer.

Phase 2 - Step e

Create an Action Plan with Corresponding Roles and Responsibilities

Now you have all the pieces in place to create an action plan. An action plan will keep your coalition on track during implementation and ensure that all partners stay on the same page. Here are the sections to include in your Action Plan, with descriptions of what to include

Priority Area

Activities

The more specific you can be, the better. If an activity has a lot of steps, you can break it into sub-activities.

Timeline

When will the activities occur? Depending on your initiative’s timeline, you might break this down by year, quarter or month.

Leader/Partner

Who will oversee this and contribute to this activity? This may be a task group with a chairperson or a program manager keeping everyone on task.

Status

How are things going with this activity? This is useful when you start tracking progress.

Success Metrics

Make sure you have baseline data for your priorities and goals. Later you will be able to measure your progress.

Phase 2

Helpful Resources


Worksheets

Phase II Establish Lung Cancer Priorities

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Phase II Hold A Kickoff Meeting or Summit

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Phase II Identify Funding And Resources

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Phase II Set Goals

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Phase II Strategy & Planning: Summary

View More

Practical Tips

Step A

Hold a Kickoff Meeting or Summit

Create a Detail-Heavy Agenda

– Participants appreciated the detailed meeting agenda so they knew which panelists were speaking at specific times. It makes for a busy agenda, but in both the in-person and virtual environments, participants are multi-tasking and need that level of detail so they don’t miss a desired presentation.

Define Participant Roles

– Some of the best meetings done are when all parties know their roles. Have a dress rehearsal of not just the technology but overall meeting. From the virtual hosting standpoint, we utilized a strong team to manage the various roles of meeting planning – advancing slides and the capability to edit them at last minute, prepping upcoming presenters in a “green room”, and always making the presenter feel he/she was connected to the staff.

Tricks to keep virtual meetings on track

– We all get screen fatigue, so it was important to keep presentations and conversations high-level and fast-paced to encourage engagement. “Rapid-fire” presentations fit this approach nicely. We capped our presentations at 8 minutes to allow for Q&A time at the end of the panel presentations. This a great way to look at in-person as well. If we keep things exciting and fast moving, it will keep attendees more focused on the presentations.

Prepare your panelists and moderators

– Presenting in the virtual environment does not come naturally to even the most seasoned expert. Since we need to be cognizant of technology capability, on-screen presence, and the myriad ways our backgrounds can be impacted by children, pets, and our homes, we stressed to presenters that these items be addressed in the days leading up to the meeting.

Ensure dedicated breaks in the agenda

– The meal and rest breaks that were built into our meeting agenda months earlier were eaten up by necessary logistical transition time within the virtual conference platform. Had we known about the transition times between panels when we initially crafted our agenda, we would have been more accommodating. Lesson learned!

Step B

Don’t Overlook In-kind Resources

By talking to the initiative’s partners, you will likely identify lots of resources without even needing to go after funding. In-kind resources may include:

Time

– Hospitals, state health departments, and non-profit organizations can donate the time of clinicians and subject matter experts to work on the initiative.

Donated administrative staff time can be used to help plan, conduct and follow-up on meetings (sending emails, scheduling polls, drafting agendas, securing/reserving virtual platforms, sending reminders, writing minutes/action items).

Space

– Space can be donated for meetings or outreach events from community partners with aligned goals: FQHCs, community centers, churches – anywhere near the populations that you are trying to reach.

Technical and Administrative Support – Research cores at your academic medical center can help by sharing equipment or other resources (usually requires membership, which tends to be attainable if working on a goal related to funder).

Vendors or consultants can be willing to do tasks on a volunteer basis in exchange for providing credit for their work.

Policy expertise can come from pharmaceutical and medical technology companies, insurance companies, or nonprofit partners

Medical students, residents, and other learners often seek out internships and community projects. There is usually a course/project/internship director that you can put your name/project in with. List initiatives as potential internship projects and offer to serve as a preceptor.

Step C

Establish Lung Cancer Priorities

Set Realistic Priorities

– Consider your team and potential resources when thinking about which or how many priorities you can tackle and be realistic about your scope. Trying to take on too many priorities or a priority that doesn’t fit may result in failure as well as over-extending and discouraging your team. You can always expand or scale-up later if you feel confident about your resources and partner engagement.

Step D

Set Goals

Short-term Goals

– By planning to “hit some home runs” in the first year, the coalition can build momentum and a positive track record that will help recruiting new partners/volunteers, getting donations or grants, gaining state support, and feeding further successes that will advance your long-term goals. Choosing achievable goals and objectives in the first year also allows members to “practice collaboration” and build trust among the different partners. This is particularly important for groups that have not historically partnered successfully.

Long-term Goals

– Whether your structure and funding allow you to scale-up your efforts over time or not, you’ll want to think ahead to what you hope to have achieved at the end of that timeframe. Thinking long-term will help you engage the right people at the beginning of your work. Even if someone doesn’t look like an obvious partner early on, they may be the people who unlock opportunities later. Think about what your effort would look like if you had more people, resources, and time at the very start.

Troubleshooting

• It’s ok to move on to the next task even if you think something is missing. You may discover more along the way.
• Consider putting out communications that can reach initiatives and get them to come to you.

• Consider a person or entity who could be considered a non-biased convener with some additional work building trust and creating a transparent approach to sharing credit.
•Allow the convener with the most capacity to take this position, but petition all supporting partners/institutions to provide more time for coalition building.
•Have more than one “co-convener”. Just make sure to clarify roles and how the co-conveners will operate as a team.

• Be transparent and make sure all stakeholders have bought-in to the initial steps.
• “Take the pulse” of the group often. Ask survey questions regarding clarity and agreement with current roles, mission, and direction. Provide multiple avenues for feedback (e-mail, anonymous surveys, simple polls/hand raising. Some people are not comfortable speaking out in a group.

• Consider whether lung cancer initiatives can partner with existing efforts. A full roundtable does not need to be built in every state. If there are existing campaigns around other cancers/all cancers, they may be willing to lend resources that can be adapted toward lung cancer.

Helpful Links