Today is Metastatic Breast Cancer Awareness Day (MBCAD) … one day for the roughly 40,000 of us dying each year of the disease. One day for the estimated 73,000 – 86,000 diagnosed annually with our disease. One day for the unknown number of Americans living at any given time with our disease.
We deserve more. Much more. We are 30% of the breast cancer population and we deserve 30% of breast cancer research funding; we deserve 30% of breast cancer support activities; we deserve 30% of Breast Cancer Awareness Month (BCAM). Thus METAvivor is claiming not just Oct 13th for recognition of metastatic breast cancer; we are claiming 30% of the month. We are claiming Oct 13th – Oct 22nd … 10 days instead of one.
Stay tuned to this page for new information coming out every day for the next ten days. Let our voices be heard!
NOTE: I have used footnotes to add sources and explain in more detail a number of statements that were distracting in the article but I felt should be included. I encourage you to read them.
This year METAvivor will award $320,000 in metastatic breast cancer research grants. How much in donations and fundraiser proceeds did it take to do this? Just $320,000. Many organizations would need over $30,000,000 to achieve the same thing. We don’t. Here’s why.
When I look at other cancer organization online I always look for their financial information. There I find little charts dividing their budgets into a host of categories including research. In most cases, this is how your donated dollar is used. It is divided up to help fund each category on the chart. It’s quite justifiable. But research is often greatly underfunded and the percentage of the research going to stage IV cancer is miniscule.
Of the few pieces of information I’ve found over the years, there was a 2004 report stating the National Cancer Institute was spending less than one-half of 1% of its $5 billion annual cancer fund on stage IV canceri. Then there was a 2007 roundup of that estimate to “less than 1%” of research funds going to metastasis research(ii). Finally a 2010 study reported a 5% stage IV research average(iii) for the western world, ranging from 11.6% (Switzerland) to 2.3% (US).(iv)
I began doing some calculations and they were shocking. I shared them a few weeks ago with friend and he said: “You must put that out there for people to understand. It has certainly changed my mind about where to donate.” So here it is.
Most organizations put far less than 50% of their revenue into research. I’ve seen well known and highly respected cancer organizations put as little as 10% of their revenue into research. For the sake of this paper, I’ll go with 30%. Of that 30% that goes into research, the average amount going into stage IV research appears to be about 2.3%, but I’ll use a more generous 3.5%. So here’s what we have.
Company X has $30,000,000 in revenue. It puts 30% ($9,000,000) into research. Out of that it puts 3.5% ($315,000) into stage IV research. Yet all METAvivor needs is $320,000 in donations and fundraiser proceeds to do in excess of that! And don’t forget that if the organization is not a breast cancer organization, only about 60% of the $315,000 ($189,000) goes into MBC research.
METAvivor puts 100% of every donation and 100% of fundraiser proceeds into its metastatic breast cancer research grants.(v) As to our operations and activities, we do only what we can get funded through scholarships, sponsorships and grants received. If we don’t receive enough, we don’t make it to a conference or we don’t print as many fliers, or we continue to store inventory in our basements and our cars (hoping for a better alternative in 2014). But our donation/fundraiser fund is untouchable except for research grants.
METAvivor has another advantage. We are all volunteers, working out of our homes(vi) and off personal equipment. Not only our lives, but the lives of tens of thousands of people we care deeply about are at stake. We have a passion and dedication born of our illness that keeps us pressing forward regardless of the challenges we face. We refuse to get caught up in nonsense or superficiality as they can only be a distraction. And we are determined to achieve our ultimate goal of drastically increasing MBC research and ultimately saving lives.
With your help, we will succeed.
i Why We’re Losing the War on Cancer [and How to Win It]. Clifton Leaf, Fortune Magazine, 2004.
ii CNN LIVE EVENT/SPECIAL, Sanjay Gupta Special: Saving Your Life, Aired January 13, 2007 – 20:00.
iii Cancer Metastasis as a Therapeutic Target. Patricia Steeg, PhD and Jonathan Sleeman, European Journal of Cancer. Volume 46 Issue 7, pg 1177-1180, May.
iv Metastatic breast cancer research is a term that is now also used for research to “prevent” MBC and for research to discover the steps in a progression to MBC. There is no longer any unique term devoted to research focused exclusively on finding solutions for the already metastasized breast cancer patient. METAvivor solely funds research devoted to the latter. But given the overlap in terminology, what one person may call metastasis research is not necessarily anything that will help the stage IV community. And that skews the statistics.
v Proceeds from third-party fundraisers are considered donations by METAvivor and thus 100% of those proceeds have always gone toward our research grants. Proceeds from METAvivor’s own “local” fundraisers were initially divided with 90% going into our research grants and 10% being used for administrative purposes to help keep us afloat. Fortunately, that is no longer necessary and 100% of all local fundraiser proceeds are now also going into our research grants. NOTE: About a year ago we entered a local, short duration fundraiser contest. Any proceeds earned had to be used locally, which excluded research. We entered using a completely different fundraising portal and widely advertised that any proceeds through that portal would go toward a gazebo erected in honor of all persons with stage IV cancer. About $200 in local donations were collected and each donor specified the donation was for the gazebo. We regret that this action caused concern on the part of a few supporters. We learned a valuable lesson. Rest assured that 100% of your donations will indeed go into our MBC research grants.
vi The Chesapeake Life Center has very generously rented us an office for $1 per year that one person can use two days per week.
