Colorado Cancer Coalition, Trailhead Institute

Engaging Coloradans During Tax Season for Colorado Cancer Coalition

Awareness Campaigns

Our Challenge

Trailhead Institute has been a pillar of Colorado’s public health industry since 1993. Trailhead is on a mission to advance innovation and collaboration in public and environmental health through projects like the Colorado Cancer Coalition (CCC), which works to provide services like cancer prevention, early detection and programs that enhance the quality of life for survivors and caregivers across the state. The CCC relies heavily on donations through Colorado’s tax check-off program, which allows residents to direct part of their refund to a nonprofit directly on their state tax form. Trailhead engaged Barefoot PR to build awareness of the program itself and drive Coloradans to donate directly to CCC through their tax form.

Our Solution

Barefoot PR saw CCC and Trailhead’s work as vital to communities across the state, and built campaigns over two years to match that urgency with accessibility. A core piece of the strategy was educating Coloradans on what the tax check-off program is and framing it as a low-effort, high-impact way to give back at a moment when they’re already thinking about their finances.

We developed original messaging and creative themes to anchor the campaign’s graphics, website copy and overall tone, refreshing the creative in the second year to keep the campaign feeling timely. We built a bilingual (English and Spanish) toolkit, so CCC team members, advisory board members and partners could share the message further through social media and word of mouth. We launched a three-month, geo-targeted digital advertising campaign each year during peak tax season. We also created a fact sheet for tax preparers, giving them an easy way to share the check-off option with their clients.

The campaign raised money for CCC’s cancer prevention and support programs and generated awareness for thousands of Coloradans to a giving tool they may not have known existed, building a foundation to carry CCC’s tax check-off campaign from one tax season into the next.