When is Breast Cancer Awareness Month? Every October, communities around the country come together to recognize Breast Cancer Awareness Month, a national campaign that promotes breast cancer awareness, education, screening, fundraising, and more. Breast Cancer Awareness Month is also a time to honor those who have been treated for breast cancer or are living with metastatic breast cancer. And it’s a moment to call attention to the fact that breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in women in the U.S., with a woman diagnosed every two minutes.
For BCRF, October is a month to galvanize around our singular mission: funding lifesaving breast cancer research. Below, find ways to support BCRF during this critical moment.
$50 fuels an hour of research in a BCRF-supported lab. Find ideas and resources to start a fundraiser for breast cancer research below.
Fundraise
Create a fundraising page as an individual or set up a team.
Find examples, tools, and more to get your fundraiser started and make it a success.
Don’t already have a fundraiser in mind? Start with these ideas for creative Breast Cancer Awareness Month fundraisers.
Whether you donate in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month or sign up to support BCRF monthly, you’ll help power the world’s most promising research and transform lives.
Donate
From shopping BCRF-supporting brands to following us on social media, there are many ways to back BCRF and keep up-to-date on research.
When you support BCRF’s partners during Breast Cancer Awareness Month and beyond, you can trust that your purchase funds innovative breast cancer research.
Get the latest breast cancer research news, uplifting stories, and more in your inbox.
Read breast cancer news and educational content on The Progress Report, BCRF’s blog.
Find BCRF on all the major platforms for inspiring content, research news, and more.
Show your commitment to BCRF on social media: Share our videos and graphics and use the hashtag #ResearchIsTheReason.
Dive into our timeline of breast cancer breakthroughs from BCRF investigators and others.
Breast Cancer Awareness Month as we know it began to take shape in the mid-1980s as a campaign to encourage mammography. In 1993, the late Evelyn H. Lauder founded BCRF with her friend and pioneering breast cancer oncologist and researcher Dr. Larry Norton. At the time, breast cancer awareness, screening, treatment, and research was nascent. Mrs. Lauder recognized that real progress against breast cancer would only happen through research, which needed robust support.
Together, Mrs. Lauder and Dr. Norton envisioned a new nonprofit that was uniquely dedicated to research. Three decades later, BCRF remains steadfastly focused on the same mission and stands as the largest private funder of breast cancer research—and metastatic/stage 4 breast cancer research—in the world.
Since our founding, BCRF investigators have been involved in every major breakthrough in breast cancer research, and we’ve pushed the field forward, faster. Research is the reason that breast cancer mortality has declined by 43 percent since 1989, that early-stage survival rates are the highest they’ve ever been, and that there are more than four million people alive today who are thriving after hearing the words, “You have breast cancer.”
BCRF recognizes that Breast Cancer Awareness Month means different things to different people—and that, especially for the metastatic breast cancer community and people who are in treatment, it can be a difficult time. Breast Cancer Awareness Month is a reminder, too, that we lose more than 40,000 people to the disease each year, and many are waiting on research to deliver advancements in detection and care.
That’s why breast cancer patients, thrivers, and their loved ones are at the center of BCRF’s mission in October—and every day of the year. This Breast Cancer Awareness Month, help us save lives by uniting around transformative research.
Support Breast Cancer Awareness Month this October. Join BCRF in supporting lifesaving breast cancer research by donating or fundraising this Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
Please remember BCRF in your will planning. Learn More
Leave your mark.
Join the Evelyn H. Lauder Legacy Society with your bequest for research.
