Each year, BCRF’s dedicated peer-to-peer fundraisers go above and beyond for lifesaving research, raising millions of dollars from friends, family, coworkers, and their communities through events, fundraising pages, celebrations, and more.
To kick off Breast Cancer Awareness Month, BCRF hosted a webinar featuring fundraisers Clara Sharp and Wendy Vean, who shared their personal connections and how they got involved with BCRF. BCRF staffer and thriver Sadia Zapp moderated and Chief Scientific Officer Dr. Dorraya El-Ashry provided updates on BCRF-supported research.
Clara was inspired to support BCRF after she was treated for HER2-positive breast cancer four months postpartum (read more about her story here). This is Wendy’s 17th year of fundraising for BCRF. Her and a tight-knit group of women have, over the years, hosted swimming, Zumba, and other fitness events benefitting BCRF, and this year they plan to host a luncheon at a local golf club.
During the webinar, Clara, Wendy, and Sadia shared several tips for making your Breast Cancer Awareness Month fundraiser a success:
1. Share your personal connection to the cause and how research has impacted you.2. Incorporate facts and statistics like:—$50 funds an hour of research in a BCRF-supported lab.—BCRF is supporting more than 260 researchers in 15 countries.—BCRF is the highest-rated breast cancer research organization in the U.S.—BCRF invested $70.3 million in research this year.3. Meet your supporters where they are, whether its through social media, email, text, or a combination of all.4. Ask your supporters if their companies have corporate matching programs.5. Thank every donor for their gift.6. Start a fundraising page to easily collect donations.
Sadia Zapp: Tell us what inspired you to fundraise for BCRF.
Clara Sharp: I was diagnosed with breast cancer when my daughter was four months old, and I was HER2-positive. It had grown very quickly because I was pregnant and I was breastfeeding. I just remember that first day driving home from [the doctor] with my husband. He said to me, “We have two daughters. You need to do your research and find out what the best organization is that we can be helping, because we need to make sure that this doesn’t happen to them as well.” And I remember that very distinctly. I work in the fundraising world, and I knew without even doing my research, that BCRF was the place for us, as the largest private funder of breast cancer research.
Wendy Vean: This is our 17th year doing our fundraiser. It stems from family and friends that were diagnosed. My sister-in-law had died one year prior to this, at age 60, of breast cancer, with no family history, no nothing. And that was way too young. I have several family members that were diagnosed, but did not die, fortunately, of breast cancer. I wanted to get closer to raising money for a worthy cause. I did my research and the Breast Cancer Research Foundation was it. I absolutely admire the Lauder family. I did research on the invention of the pink ribbon. I was buying all these Estée Lauder products with the pink ribbon, and it goes to BCRF. I went, Okay, that’s it. These people are fabulous contributors, and there’s a substantial amount of money that goes toward research. To me, research is the key, so I connected all the dots [to choose BCRF].
Sadia: Dr. El-Ashry, tell us about the incredible progress we’re making.
Dr. Dorraya El-Ashry: I think the best way to put it is that we have two major pillars of urgency that we are focused on. The first of these is extending the lives of patients with metastatic breast cancer. Virtually all deaths from breast cancer are because of metastatic breast cancer, and there are more and more women and men—as men get breast cancer as well—living with metastatic breast cancer today. We have made tremendous progress, especially in the last 10 years. … But we need to keep doubling down on that, we need to find cures for metastatic breast cancer. We need to understand how cancer cells spread and how to stop that spread before it happens, but also how to eliminate those cells once they’ve spread and eliminate them for good. Our second big pillar is preventing breast cancer. Incidence is continuing to rise, and even when we can cure metastatic breast cancer [in the future], cancers continue to evolve. They continue to evade therapies over time, and no one should have to go through a breast cancer diagnosis and treatments even as the treatments get better. Preventing or intercepting breast cancer is the only way to reduce breast cancer. By more accurately identifying high-risk patients—so that women can be diagnosed with breast cancer more accurately—then we can intervene before breast cancer ever has a chance to strike. And then overarching all of this is disparities. We know that there are significant breast cancer disparities, and that [touches] everything from prevention to access to care to treatments and testing the efficacy of treatments. For all of the progress that we’ve made, we have to make sure that it is experienced equitably, so that no one is left behind.
Sadia: Clara, you leaned into storytelling as a way of amplifying your fundraising efforts. Why is this such an effective way to encourage donations?
Clara: I was diagnosed in early 2021 so we were still very much in a Covid world. I didn’t keep my diagnosis private, but I wasn’t out in the world posting [all about it] on social media. Honestly, I was head down just trying to get through cancer. But at the end of 2021 when I had made it through the hardest parts, my husband and I were sitting down and making our year-end donations that we always do. BCRF had this platform to create an individual website. They’re so easy to create. I knew I couldn’t create one that was just a blanket template. I really felt that this was the opportunity for me to share my story with the world.
I went into some details about finding the lump and what I had to do to get officially diagnosed, and what I went through. I felt people needed to know [the reality]. It was a grueling, grueling time. I sent that out widely to everybody. I sent it to people I haven’t talked to in years. I put it out on Facebook. I put it out on Instagram. So many people reached out to me saying, “I had no idea that this was what you were going through.” A big part of the story that I leaned on was the fact that I was HER2-positive, and the fact that 20 years ago, 30 years ago, a woman who was diagnosed with HER2-positive breast cancer was really given a pretty grim diagnosis. But now, thanks to research and the development of Herceptin, the script has flipped completely. I actually remember when we were waiting for my results to come back. My breast surgeon texted me and said, “You’re HER2-amplified. Congratulations!” He was happy for me that I was HER2-positive. So I really wanted to tell the story of Herceptin. … I really want people to know that had Herceptin not been part of my life, then my life would have ended up very differently. And BCRF was a part of the development of Herceptin. I leaned on that.
Sadia: Wendy, tell us how you’ve keep the momentum up for many years?
Wendy: Almost 17 years ago we were in the water. It was like yesterday. I can’t remember what I did this morning, but I can remember, Oh, we were in the water, and I was personally having a little pity party because I had gotten a knee replacement, and physically, I couldn’t do these races and bikes and things. And the instructor said, “Well, why don’t we just splash for a cure?” So that was the beginning of my event “In Water for the Cure.” And this is a group that has been together for 35 years. … Every year it just escalated and would be more supportive. We’ve [done] Zumba for the cure and aerobics for the cure, this and that. And it’s been very, very special. The group—the Water Lilies—is 35 strong. … I’m the youngest of this group, so you know the demographic, but we have two diagnoses, and one is going through a very challenging time, so this year, we’re going to devote our event to her. However, I do want to say, from the fundraising standpoint, we were faced with the challenge on the day of our event last August. The following day, the health club closed, and [I thought] “Oh my gosh, what are we going to do?” But it’s not stopping. Breast cancer doesn’t stop. Research hasn’t stopped. I have secured a venue for the end of October, so we get to participate in Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Even though we have dispersed to different health clubs throughout the city, we still get together monthly to celebrate birthdays. So our October lunch will be honoring a member that is going through a really hard time, and it’s going to be called “Lunchin with the Lillies #ForACure.” I am not going to stop doing this until somebody tells me that there’s a cure and you don’t need to do this anymore. But of course, I’ll find something else. But for right now, I’m in it to win it and anything we can.
Clara: I would just add on to what Wendy said. I have also done different kind of fundraising events, like Wendy has described, and I found those to be incredibly effective. I started with one of those Super Bowl squares, and I decided one year: Let’s do a Super Bowl box, and 50 percent of what is raised will go to BCRF, and then 50 percent will go to the winner. And I sent it out one night before I went to bed to like, everybody in my in my address book, and I filled that box by the time I woke up the next morning. So then I had to create another box, and then I filled that box by like, 12 o’clock the next day. I ended up doing three boxes that year. And I can’t tell you how many sizes my heart grew when I saw how many people wanted to do this. And oftentimes, when a winner is announced, they just say to me, just donate that to BCRF too. They just want to be a part of the cause and moment right now. I’ve done Mahjong for a cure. Wendy, you sparked my memory, because I did everything pink in the room and invited everybody down, and I got a bunch of tables together. Your way into the event was to directly make a donation to BCRF. These are fun, unique ways to fundraise that I highly recommend.
Sadia: You both demonstrate the power of collaboration. Dr. El-Ashry, how is collaboration important to BCRF too?
Dr. El-Ashry: So much of science today is what we call team science, or, you know, collaborative science, and that’s really what has made these leaps and progress that we’ve seen over the last decade or so, come to fruition. BCRF does many things to foster collaboration, both by having our annual research retreat, where we bring everybody together, as well as smaller virtual meetings, but also through actual collaborative research efforts. A couple examples of this are our Evelyn H. Lauder Founder’s Fund for Metastatic Breast Cancer Research. And this is the largest global effort aimed at metastatic breast cancer research. Another example of collaborative research and interdisciplinary groups is the Health Equity Initiative. This is a large initiative aimed at getting at the intersection of social determinants of health—things like where you live—and the intersection of that with the biology of breast cancer in Black women, who we know have a 40 percent higher chance of dying from breast cancer. This initiative is in its first year and we launched it with support from The Estée Lauder Companies Charitable Foundation.
Something that’s even more overarching in its collaborative aspects is the BCRF Global Data Hub, which we launched a year ago. This is going to be a cloud repository of, initially, all BCRF data that has been supported over the years. That’ll ultimately be open to all of the breast cancer research community to share their data, allow others to access it, and collaborate to move it forward into new directions and new avenues.
Sadia: Wendy and Clara, what’s one piece of advice you have for people who are gearing up to fundraise for October?
Clara: One thing that’s been particularly effective for me is always including some stats. $50 funds an hour of research in a BCRF-funded lab. I like to put real, tangible numbers out there when I send out an e-mail and go on social media in October and at the end of the calendar year. Those are like the two big times to do it. I always do an update [for my supporters every year]. And I say that even though I’m out of the woods, I tell people 30 percent of women who have had breast cancer go on to be diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer at a certain point in their life. This is a very real reality for me. It is something that keeps me up at night and the only thing that makes me feel better is knowing that BCRF is out there doing all the hard work to make sure that women who are diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer can still live a long life. I like people to know that even though I’m through it, I’m never going to be through it completely. I’m always going to be here in the cancer community. It’s going to be a part of my life.
It’s also important to make sure that you are thanking your donors when they’ve reached out and made a gift. I tend to send a personal note, be it an e-mail or a handwritten letter, just to let people know how much that touched me that they did that—kind of stewarding that gift from beginning to end so hopefully it’ll spur more gifts every year.
Wendy: Well, in our demographic, I have found the power of the word of mouth is where it is for us. Social media is great, but emails are even better. And most importantly, doing any fundraiser for any organization, you are making a difference. You are doing a good deed. There’s kindness in your heart and every little bit counts. Whether you’ve been diagnosed, whether you haven’t, almost everybody that I ever meet has either been diagnosed or knows of somebody that has gone through this. I just say go for it. That’s my word. Let’s just go for it.
I do write handwritten thank you notes to everybody, too. Everybody: my friends, my family, the lilies, whoever.
Sadia: I also would encourage donors to leverage company matching. A lot of people in your network work at places that will match gifts to charities to make their donations have double or even triple the impact. Setting up an online fundraising page, as Clara mentioned, makes it really easy for your networks. She also mentioned send it out at specific time periods like October and the end of the year. There are also moments like your birthday. I’m so grateful I have another birthday to celebrate. We celebrate each year you’re out from your diagnosis. Every year is a gift, and those are also opportunities and moments for making an impact.
After you’re diagnosed, a lot of people reach out and want to help you or send you gifts and lovely things. People want to show you their love and support. I set up a fundraising page and told my support system to raise money for research instead of sending gifts and flowers and things I didn’t really need. Setting up a fundraising page is an easy access point to give to people. Meeting your supporters where they are, which you both touched on, is so important too. Using social media, email, text messages. Reach out to your different groups where they are. Facebook and Instagram also make it really easy to raise money. I encourage everyone to use all the tools available to them.
Dr. El-Ashry, what are some of the most exciting areas of research that we’re hoping fundraisers’ support will help fuel?
Dr. El-Ashry: There are quite a few areas. We’ve made tremendous progress in the in the last decade with the emergence of more and more targeted therapies, more and more of what we call precision medicine and personalized medicine. One of our other big initiatives is our Precision Prevention Initiative that is meant to bring precision medicine into the prevention arena to assess risk and intervene in more personalized way.
We found that triple-negative breast cancer can respond to immunotherapy, but there are other forms of immunotherapy out there, and one of the most exciting is vaccines. And There are several vaccines for breast cancer treatment in clinical trials now, which stimulate your immune system against a cancer. We’re just getting to the point now where some of the first vaccines for prevention are being tested for their ability to actually generate an immune response in patients. Non-surgical ways of preventing breast cancer is a big thing and vaccines will be a big part of that.
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