The reality of killing cancer

When we think about killing cancer many of us think about doctors and researchers in bright white lab coats. When we think about fundraising for killing cancer we often think about the fancy dinners and dances put on with wealthy donors in mind–we think golf tournaments and flashy television productions hosted by stars and attended by celebrities.

…it’s not the size of the donation that matters…

But killing cancer is actually a very blue-collar occupation for operations like Walking with Jane and Relay for Life and many Marathon Walk teams. We don’t measure our fundraisers in millions raised nor our success in millions saved. If we raise a couple of thousand dollars with a single event, we count that as a major fundraising success. The patients cancer research saves or helps are our friends, our neighbors, the person we work with.

Two faces of killing cancer

This was brought home to me with crystal clarity yesterday through two separate and very different events–one in Cambridge, MA and the other in Westport, MA. The first was put on by the Caring for Carcinoid Foundation and brought together significant donors with the best researchers in the field. Walking with Jane co-sponsors a Jimmy Fund Marathon Walk team with CFCF and I send them a–for me–significant check each year. Those two things make us a big enough donor to warrant an invitation to this, among other events.

…killing cancer is actually a very blue-collar occupation…

In no way do I mean anything ill toward CFCF by this. Every charity knows it has to take good care of its major donors or they will go away–taking large sums of money with them that make a very real difference in the work the charity can and can’t do. Walking with Jane has no huge monetary donors on that scale, but I host a party every year for the volunteers who make up our Relay and Marathon Walk teams. We could not do what we do without them. That they are all dear friends and former students that I really enjoy spending time with makes throwing that shindig much more fun and much less work. What those with bigger budgets do is no different, in many ways.

How the other half is killing cancer

But there is a very different flavor to the kinds of events the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and CFCF host for their important donors. For one thing, there is a lot more money in the room. I took my niece to a dinner at Dana-Farber I was invited to last winter to honor a man who was making an eight or nine-figure donation. Other than the DFCI staff in attendance, I’m sure my niece and I were the poorest people in the room–and by a lot.

Every charity knows it has to take good care of its major donors…

Yesterday’s CFCF event was not on the scale of the DFCI event. CFCF does not raise in a year, I suspect, what DFCI raises just with the Marathon Walk. Still, many of the donors in the room had flown in from elsewhere for the event on their own dime–and had donated, some of them, more than all the money Walking with Jane raised last year and distributed.

Killing cancer is the priority

I am a good social chameleon– at least, I like to think so. I have passable table manners, know which fork is which and know how to wear a suit. I’m lousy at small-talk and the social things that are part of any reception, but have discovered that many people suffer from the same problem regardless of social stratum.

…there is a lot more money in the room.

And regardless of anything else, all of us, no matter how much money we have or what social class we were born into or what political philosophy we adhere to, have a personal interest in killing cancer. Some of us have cancer, some of us have a spouse or child who is fighting cancer, some of us either are or have been caregivers to those people, and some of us have lost loved ones to the disease.

China and paper plates both have role in killing cancer

Cancer does not care how rich you are or how poor you are. Like death, it is a great leveler. And regardless how deep your pockets are, when it comes to killing cancer, we all do everything we can.

...a personal interest in killing cancer.

After the talks were over and I had finished a lunch served on nice china with cloth napkins, I headed to Westport and a very different dinner served in bowls and boats made of cardboard with paper napkins and plastic utensils: the Walking with Jane Relay for Life team’s Chowder and Clam Cake Dinner. The event took place in a school cafeteria and when I spoke there was no fancy lectern or banner. We sold raffle tickets and t-shirts and buttons.

Killing cancer $1 at a time

When it was done, we’d taken in a shade over $2,350. For us, the event was a huge success built out of $12 tickets, $10 t-shirts, and $1 raffle tickets. Where nearly everyone I’d had lunch with was in a suit and tie, the dinner crowd was there in jeans, t-shirts and sweat-shirts. And I was truly socially comfortable for the first time all day.

…when it comes to killing cancer, we all do everything we can.

Most of the nearly $300,000 the Greater Fall River Relay For Life will raise this year will be raised the same way–a few dollars at a time through cake pops and yard sales and $20 flights of plastic flamingos appearing and disappearing on people’s lawns. And every one of those dollars will matter just as much in killing cancer as the dollars raised from the deep pocket folks that get wined and dined.

Small donors equally important in killing cancer

Talk to the professional fundraisers at WGBH, DFCI, the American Cancer Society and elsewhere and they will tell you that every donation–no matter how small–matters; that if all the small donors disappeared over night–stopped making their $5 and $10 and $20 and $50 donations–their organizations would be in serious trouble. They count on donations–big and small–equally. But the big donations are harder to get–and harder to keep.

When it was done, we’d taken in a shade over $2,350…

And Walking with Jane is the king of blue-collar fundraising foundations. Other than from me, our biggest donation has been $1000. It’s happened twice in three years. Since September, we’ve had nearly 500 $1 donations. Our last mailing garnered about 60 responses and raised about $2600–about $45 for each response. We have no overhead: we have no employees; I buy the stamps, envelopes, stationary, and whatever else we need out of my pocket; we run the entire thing out of my home office. That means every dollar you send us goes to killing cancer.

Donor envy and the reality of killing cancer

Sometimes, I am envious of DFCI, CFCF, ACS, and other cancer charities who seem to grow major donors by the truckload. In the last three years I’ve met many people who think nothing of writing out a six-figure check. I’ve met people who are investment bankers, who own substantial stakes in corporations that are household names–who are rich beyond anything my mind can comprehend.

Walking with Jane is the king of blue-collar fundraising foundations.

But I’ve also worked with lots of people who struggle to pay their bills each month, yet still find a few dollars–or a lot of hours–to donate for cancer research. And I’ve observed the reality that those who have the least are the ones most anxious to give without condition. Ultimately, it’s not the size of the donation that matters–it’s killing cancer in general–and carcinoid/NETS in particular that matters.