About Spot the Dot

Spot the Dot is a small NGO working with artists, athletes, patients, and dermatologists from around the world to raise awareness of melanoma and other types of skin cancer. The aim of the projects is to encourage people to start a conversation with their loved ones (and their physician) about the importance of prevention and detection of skin cancer.

Honors & Awards

2 x shortlisted for a CCA Venus Award 2022
Issued by Creative Club Austria · May 2022
For the ‘Love your body. Check your skin’ campaign

Winner of a Patient Innovation Award
Issued by Novartis · Jun 2021
For the Check-A-Mole game in the category “Increasing Disease Awareness”

Winner of two ‘Goldene Skalpell’ Awards
Best of Pharma Advertising 2019 Winner of two ‘Goldene Skalpell’ Awards
Issued by Pharma Marketing Club Austria · June 2019
For our Rebel Against Skin Cancer video campaign l in the categories “multi-channel campaign” and “film & video”.

Nominated for the 2017 V!VA 400 award for Most Inspiring Women
Founder Marije Kruis was nominated for this award for her work with Spot the Dot in the category: World Improvers
Issued by VIVA 2017

Member of the Global Melanoma Patient Advocacy Coalition

Spot the Dot is an official member of the Global Melanoma Patient Advocacy Coalition and a global workgroup aiming to join forces on raising awareness of melanoma on a global level. https://www.globalmelanoma.org

Founder

Spot the Dot was founded in 2015 by melanoma patient Marije Kruis, who is Dutch but lives in Austria. That is why the foundation is registered in Austria. The working language is English, but we also try to translate as many projects as possible into Dutch and German (as well as French and Spanish) to make all projects accessible to everyone.

“A few years ago a friend who was a physiotherapist pointed out a tiny spot on my lower leg and told me to have a dermatologist look at it. I took up his advice and to make a long (medical) story short, that spot which looked so innocent to me, was already a far progressed melanoma. In the following year, I heard so many misconceptions about skin cancer from people around me, which made me realize that there is such a big need to raise more awareness around this topic. Hearing these misconceptions motivated me to start my own foundation, Spot The Dot.” – Marije Kruis

About Marije

Marije is 38 years old. She grew up in the Netherlands but has been working abroad for almost 10 years. Marije was active as a music journalist in the Netherlands during her studies and she was the first female journalist in the game industry in the Netherlands. She wrote almost 10 years for The Official Playstation Magazine. After her two studies, she worked as an International PR and Marketing Manager for various clients in The Netherlands and abroad. She mainly worked in the creative industry and traveled around the world with street artists with whom she worked on, among other things, this documentary: The Deepest Depths of the Burrow. Shortly after the release of this documentary, Marije got diagnosed with melanoma. In the year that she was unable to work due to treatments, she decided to start Spot the Dot. In the following years her international network came in handy. More than 200 artists, photographers, designers and musicians have now contributed to Spot the Dot. “If we do something in our free time for a good cause, then our only rule is that we have fun and create something we are all proud of“, with that attitude Spot the Dot has grown bigger and bigger. Marije is meanwhile full-time employed again as an International Marketing Manager, but in her spare time she continues with Spot the Dot.

Connect with Marije via LinkedIn