People don't necessarily always see the effect that a charitable donation has. SickKids and agency Cossette decided to change that by giving people instant gratification when donating – by watching their money actually bring a sick child home.

The team brought this to life through a very simple truth for patients at SickKids: "When a child is diagnosed with an illness, their entire life is put on pause." Sports, school, family vacation and more all come to a complete pause.

While SickKids had achieved record levels of awareness and industry acclaim with its successful 2014 "Better Tomorrows" campaign, the charity still needed to convert that empathy and goodwill into actual donations.

When a child becomes sick, it's like their entire life is put on pause.

Cossette shot updates on six SickKids' families introduced during last year's campaign, and showed them as patients whose life stories have been put "on pause." The videos would start to play and then suddenly pause. The hospital invited donors to help "unpause" the story by making a donation online. Once the user donated they would get instant gratification by being able to view the rest of the story.

This was a never-before-attempted donation approach. Potential donors were also able to see the "social proof" of others who had already made a donation, by having the names of previous donors appear below the video bar.

The "Life Unpaused" campaign targeted parents on social media and relied on its shareable content to create exposure across the country. SickKids unpaused all six stories in five weeks during the six-week campaign. The hospital received 20% more online donations than last year's campaign and achieved over 2.7 million views. The campaign received press from numerous media outlets and created social buzz across Canada, leading to 74.5 million impressions. It was the most successful campaign for SickKids in history, helping to raise $49 million.