Fundraising walks, rides, and runs for breast cancer efforts are growing in size and in number. Nonprofit organizations are even coming up with more creative ways to raise money for research. Now, such efforts are outpacing and collecting more dollars in many cities than AIDS-related events, which were the most successful disease-oriented fundraisers of their day.
A 1998 nationwide survey of AIDS organizations found that they were struggling to increase funding in the face of a public perception that the health crisis was over. Bonding for a common cause galvanized AIDS fund-raisers in the 1980s and early 1990s, but with the advent of protease inhibitors, drug cocktails, and headlines like those in the Washington Post from June 16, 1996"Eradication of HIV Seen as Possible"urgency in the battle against AIDS diminished.
The AIDS community is often credited with perfecting ways to raise private money for disease. Bradford McKee, a volunteer for the Whitman-Walker Clinic, noted in a story on AIDS awareness in November for the Washington City Paper, that "the public has been hit with wave after wave of disease chic, with patterns copied right from the sketchbooks of the old AIDS activists, with the latest incarnation being Shop for the Cure [for breast cancer], sponsored by American Express."
AIDS fundraisers eventually evolved from just walks and runs to dance marathons, bike rides to fund vaccine research, and other varied ventures, but some recent fundraising events highlight the inventiveness and perhaps broader outreach that breast cancer organizations now utilize.
The Komen Foundations Pony Express Round-Up 2000 enlisted 400 motorcyclists affiliated with the Womens Motorcyclist Foundation Inc. Four WMF teams rode their motorcycles from cities around the United States to St. Joseph, Mo., the site of the original Pony Express mail service. The event raised more than $400,000.
Other unusual breast cancer fundraising efforts: a climb by a number of young women up Alaskas Mt. McKinley raised more than $300,000; a "Boarding for Breast Cancer" event where snowboarders in the Sierras, with the support of the rock group The Beastie Boys, raised funds; and most innovatively, a nationwide coalition of gymnasiums established a "Cartwheels for a Cure," where participants see who can perform the greatest number of continuous cartwheels, raising money per cartwheel.
Perhaps the most successful breast cancer fundraiser in the 1990s has been the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. The Komen "Race for the Cure Series" started as a local fundraiser in Dallas and has grown into a nationwide series of 107 races with over 1 million participants. The Race for the Cure has spread overseas, and in August 2000, $100,000 was raised in a Komen Race in Frankfurt, Germany, by 2,700 participants.
Nancy Brinker, founding chair of the Komen Foundation and creator of the Komen Race for the Cure, noted that "the money we raise funds some of todays most promising breast cancer research and helps support local programs that might otherwise get overlooked."
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Among large, nationwide fund-raising organizers either turning from AIDS groups to breast cancer organizations or adding breast cancer to their portfolios is Pallotta Teamworks, Los Angeles. Teamworks has raised approximately $70 million since 1994 for AIDS via its multiday AIDSRidesUSA. A few smaller, single-city-based organizations are following Teamworks lead. One organization, the Adaline A. Beard Foundation, focuses on both breast cancer and HIV/AIDS among people of African descent.
In 1998, Teamworks began sponsoring 3-day breast cancer walks (in affiliation with the cosmetics firm Avon), netting more than $20 million in just 2 years. In 2001, walks will take place in Washington, D.C., Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, Seattle, Denver, Atlanta, New York, and Los Angeles.
According to Teamworks founder Dan Pallota, the causes they build their fundraising events around are "some of the most urgent causes of our times." The addition of breast cancer efforts to one that had been purely focused on AIDS parallels the perceived shift in "urgency" from the AIDS epidemic.
According to Indira Kotval, deputy executive director of HERO, Marylands largest AIDS service organization, "private money [raised via AIDSwalks] is vital because it provides HEROs only unrestricted funds, which are necessary for some basic operating expenses." These operating-cost restraints are something that many breast cancer organizations are vitally aware of.
Y-ME, an advocacy organization with 23 chapters nationwide, recently held a Y-ME race against breast cancer as part of an expanding fundraising effort. Y-ME executive director Susan N. Nathanson said that "we are experimenting with new fundraising programs and have increased our media contacts to help disseminate information."
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