Financial planning can't cure cancer, but one organization is hoping it might lead to better outcomes for cancer patients—not to mention fewer bankruptcies.

Cancer is a dreaded diagnosis, but when combined with financial stress and possible bankruptcy due to the cost of treatment, the disease becomes all the more tragic. Pro Bono for Cancer, an effort from the Washington, D.C.-based Foundation for Financial Planning (FFP), aims to weaken the link between health crisis and financial catastrophe.

“So many of us can relate to this issue because we’ve seen the strain on our families, neighbors and friends,” says Jon Dauphiné, executive director of the FFP. “This is something that we’re going to be working on as a long-term project, but it’s important to start the development now.”

The program will provide grants to cancer treatment centers and non-profit organizations to provide no-cost financial planning and advice to families coping with a diagnosis. The FFP announced a $1 million fund-raising campaign for the grants last week. More than $200,000 has already been raised, and Dauphiné expects to total to rise as he courts major corporate donors.

For Dauphiné, the decision to launch a pro-bono financial planning campaign to help cancer patients was both practical and personal.

“My brother-in-law was diagnosed with esophageal cancer, and he was diagnosed late so he only lived for about nine months. But I saw the financial stress and strain his family lived through,” he says. “Luckily, they had resources and were able to work with a planner, but it was powerful stuff.”

Upon becoming the FFP’s executive director in 2015, Dauphiné sought to link the foundation’s resources with families coping with a cancer diagnosis. His research led him to an active partnership between the Financial Planning Association of Massachusetts and the Dana Farber Cancer Institute, a non-profit in Massachusetts conducting pro-bono planning with families. He also learned of and a nationwide initiative in Australia between financial planners. He viewed these programs as proof of concept for Pro Bono for Cancer.

Dauphiné has recruited the Financial Planning Association to help source volunteers and create educational content for pro-bono planners, who will be working with patients and their families.

The FFP’s initial Pro Bono for Cancer efforts will link patients and families diagnosed and treated at cancer centers with volunteer financial planners trained in special needs and health-care planning. Grants made possible by the recently launched campaign will fund individual planning programs for three to five years.

Dauphiné is working on two pilot programs, the first slated to begin in November.

“It was personal ... but this effort was also prompted from looking at the data and research and realizing that there’s a significant societal problem that is affecting people in a serious way,” he says.

The cost of treating cancer may vary greatly depending on a person’s diagnosis and treatment options. Recent case studies by the American Cancer Society estimated the costs for different cancer diagnoses. For example, it estimated the annual costs to treat lung cancer were more than $210,000; breast cancer, more than $144,000; and colorectal cancer, more than $124,000.

Cancer patients reported paying an average of 11 percent of their household income on out-of-pocket health-care expenses in a 2016 Duke University study. But out-of-pocket costs also vary depending on diagnosis and treatment regimen. In each of the society's case studies, insurance covered most of the patient’s cost of care, but each patient also had to pay significant out-of-pocket expenses: $6,850 for lung cancer, $3,975 for breast cancer and $1,368 for colorectal cancer.

Additional research from the Hutchinson Institute For Cancer Outcomes Research linked bankruptcy to mortality among cancer patients. Patients who declared bankruptcy during their treatment were 2.5 times as likely to die as those who avoided bankruptcy.

“I’m fascinated by the possibility that pro-bono financial planning can help families facing cancer and help alleviate financial toxicity,” says Dauphiné. “There’s a whole body of research linking financial distress with bad morbidity and mortality outcomes.”

Dauphine says that the effort will include an academic research component to track both financial and health outcomes that might occur as a result of access to financial planning.

According to the American Cancer Society, the cost of all cancer treatment in the U.S. for 2014 reached $87.8 billion.

As Pro Bono for Cancer unfolds, Dauphiné is already thinking about a potential next phase of the program that might bundle financial counseling, health insurance and prescription insurance assistance with cancer treatment and health-care counseling services, a holistic solution linking financial and physical well-being.

“We’ve received an encouraging response, and there are a lot of interested parties involved, but we’re trying to make sure that we scale up in a way that’s sustainable and thoughtful,” Dauphiné says.

Dauphine says the foundation is also planning efforts to assist victims of this year's destructive hurricane. As the new campaign unfolds, the FFP’s pro-bono work serving members of the U.S. Armed Forces, veterans and their families will continue, as well as its programs benefitting 18 non-profit grantees.

Donors can participate in Pro Bono for Cancer and other FFP efforts via the campaign’s website at probono4cancer.org. More information can be found on the foundation’s website at FoundationForFinancialPlanning.org.

“We want a lot of advisors engaged in this,” says Dauphiné. “We’re already looking for volunteers in our pilot areas, but there are other great ways for advisors to give and support the effort.”

Planners and firms pledging $10,000 over a period of up to five years become part of the campaign’s leadership circle. To date, the leadership circle includes Aspirant; Glassman Wealth Services; Yeske Buie; Silver Lane Advisors; Armstrong, Fleming & More; and Dan and Kelly Moisand.