Every day, cancer survivors find little gifts from others. 

An extra bit of cash to pay utility bills. An email connecting you to the right doctor for a second opinion. A community of others to help you feel less alone. 

These little gifts most often come thanks to grassroots organizations across the country. While large organizations like the American Cancer Society and others make a huge difference, these smaller groups in your backyard or geared narrowly at just your type of cancer play outsized roles. 

But where does the money come from to keep them helping you? 

Increasingly, it’s coming from for-profit companies in biotechnology, biopharmaceuticals and broader health care. Critics would argue this is simply a public relations move aimed at improving their reputations. But inside many of these grassroots groups, leaders are less skeptical and much more thankful. 

“Pharmaceutical companies are keeping the lights on right now. No question about it,” says Lesley Kailani Glenn, chief executive and founder of Project Life. 

Glenn founded Project Life in 2021. It is a wellness community for those living with metastatic breast cancer and their loved ones that started with around a hundred members and today has more than 20,000. 

Project LIfe offers a wide variety of wellness services, including mental health support. Members of the community get access to virtual classes for yoga, journaling, and other activities. A lot of the offerings are deeply practical. Project Life has law clinics for people that have questions about wills, estate and going out on disability. There are nutrition classes, financial training, and science workshops. 

“We do a workshop on science where we teach them all about their disease. [We] help them make sense of their experience and be their own patient advocate,” says Glenn.

The main reason the lights stay on at Project Life is biopharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences and Gilead Foundation. 

Jane Stafford is President of Gilead Foundation, the independent philanthropic arm of Gilead. Most recently, the Gilead Foundation provided more than $25 million over the last five years to groups like Project Life. Most recently, the Gilead Foundation provider more than $3 million to collaborative projects focused specifically on metastatic breast cancer. 

In looking at how to fund nonprofit organizations most effectively, Stafford says she first looks at the data to figure out where the burdens of disease are greatest and where Gilead’s resources could make the most difference. The recent focus on smaller groups is the result of that examination. 

“Our role in the oncology community is to work with community organizations, healthcare professionals, and advocates to help improve the lives of people living with cancer and those impacted by it. We really want to work with those organizations that are small and nimble and making the greatest amount of difference,” says Stafford. 

Within oncology broadly, Stafford says grants seem to make the most difference around screening, diagnosis, treatment and wellness. For any small groups looking to get funding from Gilead or another group like it, Stafford says to speak up. 

“We are always very happy to get an email. Unless we are able to talk to people and engage with them, we are going to miss something,” says Stafford. 

Lesley runs Project Life from the Rogue Valley of Southern Oregon. She has been living with metastatic breast cancer for more than a decade. Every person who helps lead the group is also living with metastatic breast cancer, giving them unique insight as they go through the same side effects, doubts, and survivorship concerns as a group. 

Like all survivors, they have to lean on each other constantly. That’s been particularly true during treatments or when they just need to step away from cancer for a bit. 

“A couple of my executive leaders have really stepped up for me lately. We all step right into the role that is needed at the time,” says Glenn. 

As they look at new programs, Project Life is trying to listen to its community about what they need most. Right now, that’s on finding better answers in real time for some questions. 

“We were thrilled to get the Gilead grant and we are going to use it to implement AI and build a chatbot that focuses on nutrition and exercise,” says Glenn. 

Later this month, on June 23, I’ll be joining NYU Perlmutter Cancer Center for their annual “Faces of Cancer” webinar.

NYU saved my life, so it feels more than appropriate.

The event is led by Perlmutter Cancer Center’s survivorship program director, Dr. Marleen Meyers, and cancer education and awareness director, Dr. Deborah Axelrod. It brings together a panel of survivors to share their stories and hopefully provide some guidance for others. It’s a great event and I hope to do some good.

If you’d like to register, go here.