The year 2020 was very challenging year for everyone and every organization. The Judy Nicholson Kidney Cancer Foundation accepted the challenges presented by world events and achieved more than in any previous year of service to the Kidney Cancer Community.

The JNKCF developed, promoted, and presented 16 Kidney Cancer education and support events. Far more than in any other year of service. 14 of these events were online Zoom webinars, a new format for the foundation, and most of these were interactive.

The first two events of the year were in-person symposiums in Jacksonville and Miami, Florida. The COVID-19 outbreak brought an end to in-person events, so the foundation pivoted to the virtual Zoom events after a short hiatus to prepare for this new mode of communication.

The Zoom talks titled “Kidney Cancer Conversations” were a very gratifying success, with attendance averaging over 40 participants, and a high of 72 online attendees for one of the events.

The foundation also lent its support to other organizations in their effort to help the kidney cancer community. The foundation’s activities in support of others included the IKCC’s World Kidney Cancer Day, KidneyCan’s District Days advocacy program, the BMS Clinical Trials Summit as well as many other programs, via our email blasts, social media, and website posts.

Our social media outreach also expanded in 2020. As a result, our Facebook page community has grown to include 763 followers. Our Facebook Support Group page now has 348 members. Our Twitter account has 338 followers. Additional kidney cancer Facebook support groups were added to our posting protocol, along with our LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Instagram activity.

The JNKCF website was updated frequently and it was visited over 6,100 times this year, by over 6,000 unique visitors. Those visitors generated over 13,000 page views. Visits and unique visitors each increased over 89% compared to 2019. Pageviews increased 76% year to year.

The encouraging results above aren’t difficult to explain. The foundation launched 89 email blasts in 2020, and made 780 social media posts, for a total of nearly 900 messages. That’s an average of 17.6 messages per week, transmitted to kidney cancer patients, families, caregivers, and healthcare professionals. Other kidney cancer support organizations shared our messages, just as we helped promote theirs.

The “bottom line” detailed above isn’t intended to be boastful.

Our achievements can best be described with the simple statement:

We Helped . . . A Lot.

As we close the book on 2020 and prepare for 2021, we can appreciate the work we have done and use that experience to accomplish even more in the new year and beyond. We can also appreciate the support of everyone reading this message. Your contributions, though they are more difficult to tally, were also important.

Thank you for your continued support . . .

The Judy Nicholson Kidney Cancer Foundation.