Someone asked me today if Fiji Water was a sponsor of my blog, since I’ve been expounding my excitement over my veins opening up for blood draws after I drink the stuff.

I chucked to myself before I answered “no.”

I realize that the eventual goal of any website, non-profit, blog ETC. is to get sponsors to help pay for the costs of writing, speaking, touring, etc. But so far it’s been difficult to get any company to shell out money to a boutique (tiny) breast cancer non-profit whose main method of doling out breast cancer awareness is for its co-founder–me– to stay alive.

Take Komen as an example–that recent lighting rod of what-not-to-do as a breast cancer non-profit. I’d be a lunatic if I didn’t see the scary resemblance between my org and it: not the vastness of it, not the power of it, not the millions of dollars of it. But the sheer fact that basically I am ‘Susan G. Komen’–not the organization, but the woman. I represent the sister who Nancy Brinker, who started Komen, lost–and whom, I bet, wishes she still had. I am a living breast cancer fighter spreading breast cancer awareness, and I am not alone. Take my friend Mel Majoros, for example. Or Stacy Griffiths-Martello. There are too many of us out there with our breast cancer message of “we made it, please do the same” mantra. And we hope to still be here next year, too..

But we’re not huge. I’m probably the smallest of us three because I am lame at asking for money. But we are here none-the-less–as are many more. And the catch 22 is you won’t hear much about any of us unless and until we get sponsored.

Which brings me to another conversation I was having today with the amazing HuffPost blogger Sarah O’Leary, who happens to also be my cousin. She’s a marketing guru and author and her take on the Komen situation is enlightening and scary to me. Like many voices out there this week, hers reveals the political craziness that all-too-often derails the best of intentioned non-profits from its message tracks. Komen is supposed to be about breast health, women and the cure, not abortion. Period.

So the good news for me is that while I continue to not have sponsors, I am in nobody’s financial pocket. I can say and do what I want, as long as it’s not illegal or immoral. Yet the bad news is without money, I can’t do much. So there’s the rub.

What happens to Project Pink–whether an organization offers me grants or fundraisers or anything else to fill the coffers of a mini-org dedicated to the maximum message–LIFE OVER BREAST CANCER–remains to be seen (but I’d LOVE IT).

But if I ever do get sponsors–Fiji Water or otherwise–you can be sure I’ll be as transparent about it as the water I suck down each month before my blood draws. If I’ve learned nothing from the org whose namesake I so sadly resemble, I’ve certainly learned that.

POLITICAL POST SCRIPT:
In the end for me it’s not about Democrats, Republicans, Independents or abortions. It’s about staying the course and keeping true to your message as a non-profit.

I’m an independent voter. I’m a Catholic. A Catholic who believes that the right to life means the right to not be raped, abused, assaulted or maimed or told what to do with your body. Does that make me a sinner? I am a Christian who thinks that who you sleep with isn’t the issue, it’s whether or not you’re a jerk that matters. Does that make me a democrat? I voted for 2 Republican Senators and 3 Democratic Presidents. I voted for 2 Independent candidates for governor. I am a Eucharistic Minister and both of my children have been baptized. So who am I?

Posted February 10th, 2012 by