Devices & Diagnostics, Patient Engagement, Startups

Three healthcare campaigns you should support on Giving Tuesday

As I mentioned last week, my family lost several people this year. As I result, […]

As I mentioned last week, my family lost several people this year. As I result, I have done a lot of house cleaning – purging, throwing away, donating, and reorganizing. This has really changed my perspective on gift giving, as we move into the frenzy of the holidays.

I have always been a fan of giving experiences (tickets, classes, subscriptions) instead of giving things (another pair of earrings or another coffee table book or another scarf). Now that I can support artists and inventors and musicians on crowdfunding sites like Indiegogo and MedStartr, I have a new way to give gifts without giving stuff. I chose to support innovation in healthcare, instead of big box retailers. I don’t have my entire family on board with this yet, but I am working on it.

Here are my recommendations for worthy causes to support – just because or as a gift to someone in your life.

FORCE – Facing Our Risk of Cancer Empowered
I choose to support organizations like Breast Cancer Action, instead of anything related to Susan G. Komen, and FORCE is one of those special women’s health organizations that focus on helping women instead of selling pink stuff.

FORCE is a nonprofit that helps people understand hereditary breast and ovarian cancer. The group’s programs serve anyone with a BRCA mutation or a family history of cancer, and it hosts national events and local chapters. The group works to change healthcare policy and to support research efforts.

FORCE has
extensive information about heredity cancers, covering everything from genetic counseling to choosing a surgeon. They even have a password-protected gallery of women who have had mastectomies.

FORCE needs to raise $25,000 on #GivingTuesday to get life-saving information and support to women at high risk of hereditary cancer.


The Walking Gallery Center for Art and Healing

If you’ve ever been at a health conference and see a person wearing a suit coat with a painting on the back, you’ve seen Regina Holliday’s work. Holliday attended ENGAGE last year in Washington DC and painted a picture to illustrate the many topics we covered during our first patient engagement event. She was an epatient scholar at Stanford’s Medicine X conference in 2013 and has been keeping patients and caregivers at the center of the healthcare conversation through the Walking Gallery.

Her latest project is the The Walking Gallery Center for Art and Healing. The center will be in Grantsville, Maryland. Her current MedStartr campaign is raising seed capitol to acquire a house that 100 years old and was once owned by the town’s doctor and his artist wife.

It’s very easy to talk about patients instead of with them. Holliday has been working tirelessly to make sure that approach is part of the past, not the future of healthcare. Here is how the center will do that:

The center will have a gallery space available for rental, classroom space for art, music, fitness and dance. The building will initially have two bedrooms and one small studio/apt for artists in residence, recovering cancer patients or visiting patient advocates. The building will also have a gathering space that will assist community socializing and learning through play. In addition, our goal is to host corporate retreats, conference events and health camps with many of the major voices involved in the participatory medicine. The Center will host The Walking Gallery of Healthcare’s annual gathering.

Holliday has raised $8,800 of a $75,000 goal.

Te Vido Biodevices – nipple reconstruction for breast cancer survivors

You might be skeptical about donating to a for-profit company. Te Vido has earned $900,000 in grant funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Cancer Institute (NCI). The Texas startup is focused on using a woman’s own cells and a 3D printer to print implants and nipples for cancer survivors. The company wants to raise $35,000 on Indidgogo to cover the cost of getting a patent. Not exciting, but very important for a startup.

They have $6,700 so far, and certainly some of the most interesting perks for donors.

You can find all the #GivingTuesday campaigns on Indidgogo here. Many are focused on healthcare.

Veronica Combs

Veronica is an independent journalist and communications strategist. For more than 10 years, she has covered health and healthcare with a focus on innovation and patient engagement. Most recently she managed strategic partnerships and communications for AIR Louisville, a digital health project focused on asthma. The team recruited 7 employer partners, enrolled 1,100 participants and collected more than 250,000 data points about rescue inhaler use. Veronica has worked for startups for almost 20 years doing everything from launching blogs, newsletters and patient communities to recruiting speakers, moderating panel conversations and developing new products. You can reach her on Twitter @vmcombs.

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