The art of collaboration is humbling. When thousands or even millions of people unite to achieve the same outcome it is a tricky combination of luck, strategy, and sacrifice. I spend a lot of effort working with the childhood cancer cause. However, you may notice that there is no leader in Childhood Cancer awareness or support. When asked to list the number one organization in this cause you might be quick to say, “St Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital” or “American Cancer Society”. These are both fine organizations but they are not major players in pediatric cancer when you boil down the numbers.
The cause of curing Childhood Cancer is not ubiquitous in our culture. Many people know that kids get cancer. They do not know how much funding fails to go towards curing it. More money has been spent to solve poverty, homelessness, and environmentalism in the past month than there has been towards childhood cancer in the past decades.
Let’s discuss for a second the culture inside the cause – the hundreds of organizations that are 501c3 non-profits working to help patients and families with Childhood Cancer. I will only talk about my personal experience because that is all I can speak accurately about. The cause is competitive, it’s distilled, and it’s got a million different directions. Unlike Breast Cancer, Autism, Aids, and other causes, Childhood Cancer has not managed to unite in branding – it is not backed by one message and a united group of non-profits working towards the same cause.
I write this blog entry to let you all know of the realities of this community – I do what I can to unite these organizations but even I don’t have access to most of the people in this cause yet. I can only hope that the masses can come together and make this happen. It’s important to realize the reality of this cause and face the facts. What’s even more challenging is trying to explain this to a child and parent when they ask why so many people aren’t aware or aligned with the mission of curing and helping their child.
