Pancreatic Cancer Action increased its income by 141 per cent as a result of its “I wish I had breast cancer” campaign, despite not asking for money, its chief executive told an audience of fundraising experts last week.

The charity faced criticism in February last year after it ran a series of shocking images of people with pancreatic cancer as part of the campaign, against slogans such as “I wish I had breast cancer”, in order to highlight the seriousness of the disease and the low chances of survival.

Ali Stunt, chief executive of Pancreatic Cancer Action, told the Fundraising Live conference, run by Fundraising magazine and Civil Society Media, that monthly donations to the charity increased substantially, even though the charity decided before they launched the campaign that they would not ask for money.

“We couldn’t go out with such a strong strapline and ask for money at the same time,” she said. “So we decided that we were going to disconnect the fundraising from that campaign.”

But despite that, in the twelve months after the campaigns income rose by 141 per cent.

She said: “So it worked for us, but we didn’t ask for money.”

Stunt did not give figures for how much was raised, however the charity’s income in the year to December 2013, before the campaign ran, was £291,000.

Stunt also said the charity considered the impact of the campaign on those newly diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. But the charity decided that it should go ahead with the campaign because the rest of the population needed to know how severe the disease is, and “if you are a patient you find out quickly what the chances of survival are”.

In April 2014, the Advertising Standards Agency ruled that the adverts (shown below) did not breach guidelines, despite receiving 121 complaints stating that the adverts were offensive or distressing.