Cancerfonden’s storytelling builds trust and engagement, connecting facts with emotion. Here’s how

Cancerfonden is Sweden’s charity to fight cancer. It funds research and boosts awareness, with the goal of defeating cancer for good. Entirely dependent on donations and gifts from individuals and businesses, it is one of Sweden’s largest funders of cancer research.

Storytelling plays a pivotal role in its marketing and communications. “Cancer is a subject that affects everyone,” says Digital Content Designer Thomas Jansson. “And personal stories help us make it more relatable.”

“By sharing stories from those who get a diagnosis, their next of kin, healthcare professionals, or researchers, we build empathy and understanding, while also highlighting the importance of research and support.

“Storytelling allows us to connect facts with emotions, making our message more engaging, trustworthy, and inspiring.”

With this in mind, it’s important for Cancerfonden to be able to design and publish the most striking and powerful stories it possibly can.

A digital publishing tool that offers flexibility

Four years ago, the team sought a more visual and compelling way to tell stories. “Our CMS (Keystone) is great at a lot of things,” Jansson says, “but we lacked the flexibility to present articles, reports, and stories in a more conceptual, visual way.”

After hearing about the platform via an agency that had used it, Cancerfonden chose Shorthand over other tools because it was the most flexible with how it could be integrated into Cancerfonden’s website, Jansson recalls. “[It was] easy to get started, including getting the help to set up the account in accordance with our brand profile. [Shorthand] met our needs to build content in new ways without having to depend on technical resources like developers.”

And it has paid dividends, with highly engaging stories and prestigious awards.

“We like that it is flexible and has many different features,” Jansson says, “and that we could integrate it with our website in a good way — including SEO. It was quick to learn how to use it, and the same applies to new features. It gives us the opportunity to have more visual storytelling than with other components or our CMS.”

Creating award-winning stories

Cancerfonden’s 2023 Annual Report is a triumph of sophisticated design, powerful data storytelling, and high-impact marketing. It was recognised by global professional services giant PWC, winning the award for Nonprofit Sector Report of the Year.

“This year’s winning report is straight to the point,” the prize jury said. “With a clear common thread, vision, goals, operations, and finances are tied together and priorities for fulfilling the organisation’s purpose are clarified.

“A full report without nonsense!”

Winning awards is important to the Cancerfonden team “because it shows that our communication resonates beyond our own channels,” says Jansson. "Recognition from the outside strengthens the credibility of our work and helps amplify our message."

“It also gives us opportunities to talk about our work in new forums and with new target groups.” This broader reach included PR opportunities — PWC distributed a media release about its awards, and hosted the Cancerfonden team on its podcast.

Recognition for Cancerfonden and its fine work created with Shorthand has continued. It claimed three awards at the 2025 Publishingpriset (Publishing Prize), including the Gold Award for Best Annual Report for its 2024 Annual Report, and The Grand Prix Web Award and Gold Award for the story ‘Cancer Researcher of the Year: My favourite cell is the connective tissue cell’. Judges of the Gold Award called the story “A digital journey with a clear sender, varied layout, and rich visual content.”

High engagement

Jansson notes that Cancerfonden’s “scrollies” achieve very high engagement rates — typically between 80–93%. In Google Analytics 4, engagement rate reflects the share of visitors who meaningfully interact with the content, making these results especially impressive.

“Our overall engagement rate for this year is 82% so the scrollies are either on the same level or much higher.” 

‘Vad är metastaser?’, or ‘What are metastases?’ with its 92% engagement rate, is one such high performer. “We have presented something complex and ‘boring’ in a compelling way,” he says.

Jansson is also proud of the team’s work on the Gold Award-winning 2024 Annual Report. This edition has been fine tuned since the 2023 one, working even harder to prioritise the reader’s experience. “The aim was to present the most important things only,” he says, “in a very short manner, based on the organisational goals and achievements.”

Best-practice partner content 

Collaborating with corporate partners on stories is another important part of Cancerfonden’s outreach work. Two examples include a piece prepared with grocery retailer ICA, and one with pharmacy chain Apotek Hjärtat.