Balloon Spotting

Challenge After raising nearly $1.7B to build a new hospital, the SickKids Foundation is now facing its most ambitious fundraising goal – funding the transformative work that will happen within the hospital. The challenge: Canadian charitable donations are at a 20-year low with only 17.1% donating, where SickKids isn’t perceived as having the greatest financial need. Instead, they donate to organizations better aligned with today’s socioeconomic climate. As the hospital approached its 150th anniversary, we saw the opportunity to earn a place in potential donors’ hearts and minds, reminding them of SickKids’ vital importance – not just locally but to kids around the world.

INSIGHTS In Toronto, almost everyone has a SickKids story. But Toronto is just the beginning. Since 1875, SickKids has been part of stories across Canada and around the world. But many of these stories have been forgotten or overlooked. If SickKids hadn’t opened its doors 150 years ago, the world would be a very different place. Not just because of the many birthdays it made possible for its patients, but because of what those birthdays have allowed our patients to achieve, the unmistakable mark hospital teams made on pediatric care worldwide, and the magic the hospital brings to the community. That’s something to celebrate – in the most SickKids way possible.

IDEA To commemorate SickKids’ 150th anniversary, we launched the “Balloon Spotting” campaign, placing 150 blue balloon sculptures worldwide. Each represented a unique story of SickKids’ profound impact on pediatric healthcare, highlighting breakthroughs, global partnerships, and clinical advancements. The first balloon – “1875 – Elizabeth McMaster opens SickKids, Canada’s first children’s hospital” – was unveiled on April 3, exactly 150 years to the day after SickKids admitted its very first patient. Subsequent balloons across Canada, the US, Europe, Barbados, China and South Africa sparked media engagement and an outpouring of individual stories from those with their own SickKids story, including Ryan Reynolds. The campaign culminated with a public birthday celebration in Nathan Phillips Square with the reveal of the biggest balloon of the bunch: an enormous hot air balloon reading “Happy 150th Birthday SickKids.” More than 8,000 members of the public enjoyed hours of family-friendly celebrations, including a live, surprise appearance by Ryan Reynolds himself.