Samsung Bloggers Lounge always welcomes amazing speakers from filmmakers through entrepreneurs to TV stars. Once in a while there comes a person whose story is worth telling. Yael Cohen, who at the age of 22 started ‘F Cancer’ charity, is one of them.
After Yael found out her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer, she made her a t-shirt with a slogan ‘F Cancer,’ a t-shirt intended to be worn privately, at home, while recovering. Yael’s mom had a different idea and started wearing the t-shirt everywhere. The reaction of people seeing the t-shirt was surprising, from hugging through high-fiving to wanting to hear her story and share theirs. Those reactions have inspired Yael to do something bigger with it. This was the start of the F Cancer Foundation.
The charity is changing lives by focusing on making the youth smarter about looking for cancer as opposed to finding it, and making the cancer conversations with their parents easier. F Cancer has already raised millions of dollars and has celebrities lining up to support it. During her speech, Yael shared tips on her success in connecting to that specific audience. Though simple and obvious, they should be a core of every communications program:
- Speak their language. To be effective, you need to understand your audience and learn their language. If you don’t have the right person who can communicate with your audience, find and hire him or her.
- Go where they are. It’s much easier than pulling the audience toward you . If you don’t find the right place, create your own.
- Let people have their own conversations. Provide the platform and the trigger for the conversation but let people talk and tell their stories.
One thing we can all learn from Yael’s personal success story? No matter how old you are, if you find something you believe, pursue it.
