ABOUT THE PROJECT

Neurodegenerative diseases, including dementia-type diseases, remain hidden in the shadows - misunderstood and stigmatized. This is despite the fact that many people report knowing someone close to them being diagnosed with dementia. While there is low awareness of all neurodegenerative diseases, understanding of Frontotemporal Dementia (FTD) and its symptoms is particularly limited. Unlike Alzheimer’s disease which impacts memory, FTD impacts how people behave which can be harder for families to identify. As Dr. Sami Barmada, Director of Michigan Brain Bank at University of Michigan Medicine notes, “It doesn't look like dementia or something that you can put your finger on. Very often you'll hear people say they just started to act really weird, and they're not the same person." 

Even healthcare professionals struggle to diagnose it. It can take years for an accurate diagnosis and it is often misattributed to other mental health disorders. This underdiagnosis further impedes FTD treatment development, by reducing the pool of potential participants in the relevant research.

It’s a lonely, stigmatizing and difficult journey for those living with FTD and their loved ones. Yet, an early diagnosis can have significant benefits, including eliminating uncertainty, qualifying for new and emerging treatments, and allowing participation in care decisions.

While there are a range of legacy non-profits and research hubs supporting advancements in neurodegenerative diseases, there remains a significant gap in public awareness, salience, and mobilization to demand a new model of care. 

OPPORTUNITY & OBJECTIVES

To develop a creative awareness campaign to increase salience amongst key audiences. The end deliverable of this phase is a campaign strategy to determine which audiences to target, what perceptions to change and how we plan to reach and move them. For example, we may land on developing a campaign focused on targeting mental health practitioners, where FTD often gets misdiagnosed, to help them spot signs of FTD earlier to shorten the diagnosis journey. Alternatively, we could focus on increasing broad public awareness of the early signs of FTD, so potential caregivers can spot the disease and find the right answers. We’ll need your help, in collaboration with our strategy team, to come up with this campaign concept.

This will include interrogating questions like: 

• Do we focus on awareness of FTD specifically, or neurodegenerative diseases more broadly?
• Who are the existing organizations in the broader ecosystem that can be allies? 
• Where in the diagnosis journey do we intervene? 
• What audience(s) do we focus on? 
• What’s our short-term and long-term theory of change and roadmap?
• Considering the above, where does this campaign or program live? 

The long-term goal of this work is to: 

• Lead to early diagnosis and reduce uncertainty 
• Connect patients and loved ones to a community of care and better organize the FTD ecosystem and beyond 
• Result in greater diagnosis and a more representative pool for research efforts
• Increase funding to necessary research for neurodegenerative diseases 
• Support those living with FTD, and other neurodegenerative diseases, and find a cure

ABOUT THIS ROLE 

Type: Contract/Freelance Consultant

Duration: 1.5 months – from April 15th - June 5th

Time commitment: 10-16 hours/week 

Location: United States, ideally East Coast based, or willing to work ET hours.

Key responsibilities may include (but not excluding): 

Campaign Strategy Workshop

• Work closely with project leads to prepare for an external campaign strategy workshop with our client and any other external stakeholders. 
• Synthesize insights from the workshop, and prepare a summary report that can be shared with the client. 

Campaign Strategy 

• Based on outcomes from the campaign strategy workshop, lead the development of a campaign strategy that includes: 
• Theory of change
• Target Audience profiles 
• Identification of coalition partners 
• Calls-to-action 
• 3 x Creative directions / treatments [We will have a designer lead on this]
• Messaging and distribution strategy
• Impact, Measurement & Learning plan [This will be developed by the IML lead]
• Be able to respond and implement client feedback.
• Present a final campaign strategy to the client.

Creative Brief 

• Work with the lead strategist to put together a creative brief to ensure that the creative team is briefed on the approved campaign strategy, and can develop a campaign brand that responds to it (visual & verbal ID).  

The ideal person will have: 

• Experience developing public awareness campaigns that can move hearts and minds on social impact issues 
• Experience leading campaign strategy workshops, and navigating input from multiple stakeholders
• Experience collaborating with cross-functional teams (creative, strategy, campaigns, impact measurement, program management)
• Self-sufficient; can take initiative when assigned a task or deliverable to own and execute on
• Nice to haves include: 
• Public health campaigning experience
• Paid media experience 
• IRL campaign activations 
• Experience targeting audiences through Google ads (e.g. keywords related to an FTD diagnosis)

Purpose takes on some of the biggest challenges in the world, which affect people of different identities and backgrounds in different ways. We are stronger and most effective with a diverse team leading the charge and are committed to building a team that represents a variety of backgrounds, perspectives, and skills. 

As an equal opportunity employer, we welcome the unique contributions that individuals bring in terms of their education, opinions, culture, ethnicity, race, sex, gender identity and expression, nation of origin, age, languages spoken, veteran’s status, color, religion, disability, sexual orientation and beliefs.