Elevating Survivorship
The Elevating Survivorship (Elevate) Ambassador Program empowers advocates and survivorship professionals to improve survivorship care in their communities.
As treatments improve and people with cancer live longer, more attention needs to be paid to their future health needs to improve the quality of life to reduce the physical, emotional and financial burdens of cancer.
NCCS created Elevate to identify gaps in survivorship care and deploy advocates to fill those gaps by implementing projects in their local and virtual communities.
Elevate Ambassadors
Who better to help shape opportunities, improvements, and needs for survivors than advocates and survivorship professionals?
The Elevate initiative centers around the training, mentoring, and continuing support of Elevate Ambassadors.
Since 2018, 47 individuals from across the country have been chosen by NCCS to serve as Ambassadors. During the application process, Ambassadors propose a potential project to work on in their community — whether at a hospital, oncology practice, community-based organization, or virtual platform.
NCCS provides training, support, and networking opportunities to help Ambassadors develop and execute a plan of action for their project. Ambassadors work to refine their projects during a two-day training, and are supported throughout their term through collaborative webinars, 1:1 mentoring, and more.
2025 Elevate Ambassadors
Ritu Amarnani | Washington, DC
Olivia Burzoni, MPA | Topeka, Kansas
Amelia Corl, MPH | Denver, Colorado
Kristie Fields, MHS | Suffolk, Virginia
Gitte Joergensen, PhD | Coventry, Connecticut
Jessie Lindemann, MD | Fargo, North Dakota
Sami Mansfield | Denver, Colorado
Shay Moraga | Palm Desert, California
Mirta Sanchez Rios | Groveland, Florida
Jennifer Thompson MDiv, PhD | Chicago, Illinois
Eshan Vishwakarma | Glen Allen, Virginia
Read more about the advocates selected for the 2025-2026 Elevate Ambassador program.
Examples of Elevate Ambassador projects:
- Virtual: Creation of Project Life, a navigation program for women living with Metastatic Breast Cancer. The program uses lay navigators to assist women looking for support, access to treatments/clinical trials, and mentorship.
- South Dakota: A conference to educate survivors about what they should expect from their health care team in a very rural area where survivorship resources are difficult to find.
- Illinois: Create and share webinars on research design, genetic testing and clinical trials and create a directory of patient-advocate-friendly medical advisors and a Survivors Assisting Scientists model that is being replicated nationwide. CTAP initial training was held at the University of Chicago in February of 2020.
- Alabama: Patient Advocacy Cancer Support Network educates the local community on survivorship issues specific to African-American cancer survivors. They provide digital health literacy classes and technology for participants to conduct telehealth visits.
- South Florida: Education for the Spanish speaking communities for individuals and families with history of hereditary cancer including help with access to genetic counseling services.
- California: Partnership with Los Robles Health System to train those within the system about health equity. Webinar/roundtable was conducted in September 2020.
Elevate In the News
Elevating Survivorship was featured in NPR’s On Point and in the Wall Street Journal.
I wish that my health care team would address survivorship issues and long-term effects of my cancer diagnosis. At this point I am just told to call if there are any changes in the way that I feel, this leaves me feeling uneasy and uncertain about the future of my health.
-Survey Respondent
Elevate improves survivorship care by:
- Conducting Nationwide Research to Assess Post-Treatment Needs Research
NCCS conducted a nationwide survey of cancer survivors about their post-treatment needs and opportunities for better care, in partnership with the Association for Community Cancer Centers (ACCC). One goal of the survey was to identify if survivors who received immunotherapy treatments have distinct needs for survivorship care.
Read the Survey Results - Empowering Survivors to Make a Difference in Their Communities
NCCS selects patient leaders using an application process to become Elevate Ambassadors. NCCS provides training, support, and networking opportunities to help Ambassadors develop and execute a plan of action for a new project idea to improve survivorship care in their community — whether at a hospital, oncology practice, community-based organization, or virtual community. There is a time commitment for this program, which also includes an in-person training in Washington, DC, for which NCCS will cover travel costs. We ask that all Ambassadors be members of our Cancer Policy and Advocacy Team (CPAT). Sign-up here if you aren’t already a member.
Learn More About the Elevate Ambassador Program - Equipping Survivors to Be a Spokesperson for Cancer Care Advocacy
NCCS developed a Survivorship 101 presentation template for speakers to use to educate community members about cancer survivorship and the post-treatment needs of cancer survivors. Speakers can customize the presentation to include their own experience and to reflect the audience, which could include support groups, provider groups, or other community-based organizations. NCCS chooses speakers for this program.
If you’re interested in learning more, please contact us at elevate@canceradvocacy.org.
Questions about Elevate? Contact us at elevate@canceradvocacy.org.
2025 Elevating Survivorship Program Supporters
