We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Olivia Zhang a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Olivia, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?

Growing up, my after-school teacher with whom I spent every afternoon when my mom was working late—and my grandfather—a teacher himself—were my two closest confidants. They shaped my values from an early age.

After my grandfather was diagnosed with cancer, I started selling artwork to my classmates and on social media to raise money for his treatment. When I hear my teacher was diagnosed with breast cancer, I doubled my efforts. I only raised a few hundred dollars, but at the time, I felt like I was doing the most I could to make a difference.

When both my elementary school teacher and my grandfather succumbed to cancer while I was in middle school, I was devastated. Mirroring both my teacher and my grandfather, who tirelessly devoted their lives to serving children, I founded the nonprofit Cancer Kids First (CKF), an organization that normalizes hospital environments and creates communities for pediatric cancer patients.

Despite initial obstacles like self-doubt and partnership rejections, both CKF and my passion grew steadily. I pulled countless all-nighters crafting a vision for CKF’s future. When forging hospital partnerships, I organized lists of pediatric oncology centers by state and contacted them consistently. Connecting one-on-one with patients, parents, and potential volunteers showed me how to make volunteering rewarding and impactful on both ends. Armed with this knowledge, I pushed both my leadership team and myself to extend our outreach, create innovative social media plans, and spearhead five service programs to address the myriad struggles that patients face.

I also found mentors who guided me in scaling effectively. In under three years, CKF grew into the largest youth-led organization serving pediatric cancer patients worldwide.

Olivia, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

As the CEO and Founder since 2019, I have grown CKF from a team of three to over 40,000 in 80 countries. I spearhead five service programs that donate 60,500+ pieces of hospital equipment, toys, books, and cards to impact ~10,000 patients in 21 countries, including Cameroon, Pakistan, and Bolivia. Under my leadership, CKF has established coalitions with 72 hospitals and 39 businesses, including Vera Bradley and Kendra Scott. We have initiated 200+ virtual interactive events where volunteers converse and play games with patients, decreasing social isolation.

My work with CKF led me to serve as the only adolescent on two multinational health boards—World Child Cancer and WEGO Health. In these positions, I meet weekly to advise on project development, engage youth in health initiatives, and collaborate with leading stakeholders.

My journey in service has motivated me to uplift youth leadership. In 2020, I launched 51Forward, a nonprofit mentorship program. I have cultivated 187 leaders in 100 youth-led nonprofits to impact 5,000 individuals. I also post service project tips on social media, amassing 100,000 followers on TikTok and over 27 million views. I speak about youth leadership in podcasts and webinars and host classroom discussions nationwide to dismantle racial, gender, and age barriers in service work.

Have you ever had to pivot?

“We’d rather just give up…at least this way, she can pass away at home, in peace.”

This past summer, while traveling to Indonesia to help improve the healthcare landscape, I had a profound realization that led to a pivot in CKF’s service programs.

In July, I contacted the pediatric oncologists at the Tzu Chi Hospital in Jakarta, which serves around 100 patients annually in their pediatric oncology department. I gathered a team of volunteers to collect donation items and create inspirational cards for the patients at Tzu Chi. Altogether, we were able to donate 127 medical supplies and educational toys. I was also able to meet patients and their families in person. From Kinayu to Stella, each patient displayed indescribable positivity and bravery. Spending time in the playroom, drawing art pieces, and hosting dance performances with them was magical.

However, hearing their backstories broke my heart. I learned that many of the patients’ families begged the doctors to let them leave because they could not afford treatment any longer. Parents were weighed down by the immense guilt of not being able to give their children a chance at living, but they simply could not cover the necessary treatment costs. Luckily, Tzu Chi’s doctors worked with external organizations to raise funding for low-income patients’ hospital stays.

Their stories helped me understand the healthcare discrepancies between developed and developing countries. While patients in the US primarily lacked toys, books, and other activities to take their mind off of treatment, patients in low-income countries faced life-or-death situations.

In-person delivery experiences such as these has pivoted CKF’s focus to aiding kids with cancer outside of the US and the formation of our Treatment Service program. Since the program’s creation, we have delivered basic necessities for Colombia, play therapy kits for Cameroon, school supplies for Mexico, and are working on supporting the needs of patients in South Africa.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

“Success is signaled through numbers or growth.”

In January 2021, CKF volunteers skyrocketed from 120 to 7000 in one week, thanks to TikTok. I was excited about the sudden growth but soon became overwhelmed with managing such a large team.

I pulled all-nighters for months, shut out loved ones, and didn’t focus on school. My mind spun from the countless partnership proposals we received, meetings I took in between classes, and events I shoved into each month in an effort to scale CKF. I was so focused on our quantitative growth—the number of new volunteers we had, views on social media accumulated, and items collected at donation drives—that I lost sight of what was important: creating the greatest impact on kids with cancer.

Sitting down and conversing with Lilliam Rosario, one of our board members, made me realize that I had entered the “McNamara fallacy”—I was leading our team solely focusing on quantitative observations while ignoring all other facets.

From that experience, I learned the importance of reflection. I would tell my younger self to appreciate every milestone we hit, but also to reflect on the stories of the individual patients we have aided in order to connect back to my roots of why I started CKF in the first place. That is why today, we focus on measuring our impact through patients touched rather than strictly quantitative numbers like amount of money donated or people reached.
Amid fast-paced growth, it is easy to get caught up in the rising numbers, but stepping back and re-centering around creating the deepest impact in your target community is vital.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://cancerkidsfirst.org
• Instagram: @cancerkidsfirst
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/olivia-zhang-a792b8229/