Milestones
(Agency)
(Client)
Cannes Lions
(Role)
Creative Director/Strategist
Insight + Strategy
CureSearch’s Milestones was designed as a corporate engagement platform connecting the breakthroughs of pediatric cancer research with the childhood milestones those discoveries make possible. Each year, more than 15,000 children in the U.S. are diagnosed with cancer — a diagnosis that can abruptly rewrite their futures. Milestones set out to humanize those futures, showing donors how every research milestone achieved brings a child closer to experiencing their own: first days of school, joining the soccer team, celebrating birthdays. Developed as a sell-in concept for Cannes Lions, the initiative was built to inspire real-world impact by reframing corporate giving as something deeply personal and measurable.
The Milestones app was envisioned as a digital ecosystem driving both corporate partnerships and employee-level donations. Participating companies would contribute funds that employees could allocate toward specific clinical trials or research initiatives, creating transparency and emotional connection between donor and outcome. Through an interactive timeline, employees could visualize how their contributions accelerated both research progress and tangible childhood moments — for instance, seeing how a donation helped “Jake graduate kindergarten.”
To deepen engagement, the app integrated a social community where employees could celebrate donation milestones, share progress externally, and invite friends and family to join. Gamified incentives, like extra vacation days for top contributors, encouraged continued participation. At trade shows and corporate events, an immersive digital display showcased the app’s impact in real time, highlighting CureSearch as a partner capable of delivering measurable results and meaningful change.
Creative platform + activation
RESULTS
Though created as a sell-in concept, Milestones stood out for its ability to merge data, empathy, and design into a compelling fundraising ecosystem. The concept demonstrated how storytelling and interactivity could elevate traditional corporate giving into a transparent, emotionally resonant experience — one that strengthens brand purpose, boosts employee engagement, and ultimately accelerates funding for life-saving pediatric cancer research. The Milestones proposal became a benchmark for how digital tools can turn corporate philanthropy into something both personal and powerful.