Garvan's Disease Dilemmas makes donors choose a patient to fund — $19M given

Garvan Institute's genomics research touches cancer, diabetes, osteoporosis, MS and other diseases, but few Australians knew the institute, while thousands of disease charities competed for the same donations. Fundraising needed an idea that made people choose Garvan.

Confront the public with impossible two-patient choices, then show Garvan's genomics research can help them all — the donation dilemma resolves into one answer.

BWM Dentsu cast twelve real patients ('heroes') and filmed them as quiet moving portraits against neutral backgrounds, pairing them in impossible either/or questions across bus shelters, roadside billboards, tram wraps, TV and radio. A mobile-first site let visitors make the choice themselves and donate to research that covers all the diseases shown.

The campaign generated over 87 million impressions, about $1.1 million in earned media and a 61% rise in Garvan's website traffic; the institute received over $19 million in donations during the campaign. The work took the 2022 APAC Tambuli Grand Prix, was recognised at the One Show 2022 and entered the D&AD archive.

The Garvan Institute of Medical Research is a Sydney biomedical institute whose genomics work has produced causes and treatments for diseases from cancer and diabetes to osteoporosis and MS. But despite the breakthroughs, the public barely knew the name — and with thousands of disease-related charities asking for the same dollars, an ordinary fundraising appeal had no chance of standing out.

The idea, built by BWM Dentsu over three years, made the donation dilemma itself the message. 'Disease Dilemmas' presented twelve real people living with different illnesses — the young mother with pancreatic cancer, the musician with Parkinson's, the teacher with a kidney condition — and forced the audience to choose who to help. Because Garvan's genomics research spans all of those diseases, every impossible choice resolved into a single answer: give to Garvan.

The heroes were filmed as moving portraits against neutral backgrounds, holding the viewer's gaze while telling their stories, so the work read as documentary rather than advertising. Their faces were then paired in bus shelters, on roadside billboards, on tram wraps, and in TV, cinema and radio spots. A mobile-first website let visitors make the choice interactively and donate, and the campaign imposed the dilemma in busy public spaces and even at a major sports stadium.

The results exceeded the brief: over 87 million impressions, roughly $1.1 million in earned media, a 61% increase in website traffic and more than $19 million in donations during the campaign period. The work went on to win the Grand Prix at the 2022 APAC Tambuli Awards, was recognised at the 2022 One Show and sits in the D&AD Awards archive as a case of fundraising creativity that made donors feel the problem instead of just hearing it.

The either/or framing forced empathy: the audience could not dismiss the appeal without deciding between two real, sympathetic people.

Real patients rather than actors, shot with restraint, made the campaign feel like a documentary and kept attention on the human cost.

Every choice led to the same resolution — Garvan's genomics research — so the dilemma educated the public about the institute's breadth of work.

Placing the pairs in daily commuter spaces made the moral question public and unavoidable, not something to scroll past.

The interactive digital layer turned passive viewers into decision-makers, and the decision itself was the call to donate.

When an appeal sounds like every other, make the audience perform the moral dilemma: choosing between two worthy people makes the resolution — one institute that helps both — feel like relief.

Disease Dilemmas became one of the most-awarded Australian fundraising campaigns of its cycle: a Grand Prix at the 2022 APAC Tambuli Awards under Health & Wellness, recognition at the One Show 2022, and a place in the D&AD archive. The agency reported a 33% rise in spontaneous awareness of the Garvan Institute and a 222% return on the campaign investment. The pattern it set — dramatising a genuine choice a donor faces, then resolving it with the organisation's own capability — has since been reused by charities trying to break out of a crowded appeal season.