Imran Khan made a nation-wide appeal for collection of funds from a match between Pakistan and India on November 10, 1989 at Gaddafi Stadium Lahore, which raised Rs. 2,902,600. This was followed by a series of fundraisers held throughout the world. Pakistan's win under Imran's captaincy in 1992 cricket world cup in Melbourne helped fundraising efforts. He was able to collect one and half million pounds in just six weeks after the World Cup when the same amount had taken 2 years to collect earlier. He donated his entire prize money of 85,000 pounds for the project.

In 1994 when the project required more financing for the ongoing construction, Imran Khan launched a mass contact campaign in which he toured 27 cities in the country and collected Rs.120 million. During the entire campaign for the construction of the hospital, over a million individual donors from ordinary citizens to the rich and famous pitched in. Everything from cash to jewellery and valuables were donated.

In 1994 a $24 million state of the art cancer hospital was opened in Lahore, Pakistan. Over 140 million people live in Pakistan with an estimated 50 million below the poverty line. There are between 100,000 to 200,000 new cases of cancer reported every year in the country. Prior to the establishment of the hospital, no comprehensive facility dedicated to the diagnosis and treatment of cancer existed in Pakistan.