BHGI wins funds from global ‘Turn Your City Pink’ campaign

The Hutchinson Center-based Breast Health Global Initiative (BHGI) is the recipient of $22,185 from the “Turn Your City Pink!” breast cancer awareness campaign by European global healthcare technology company Siemens AG. In addition to BHGI, the yearlong campaign raised funds for Susan G. Komen for the Cure®, the International Breast Cancer Research Foundation and the American Cancer Society.

The campaign invited people from around the world to upload to photos and videos of breast cancer action initiatives in their own communities to the Siemens website. The company then donated $5 for each entry to one of the four beneficiaries as designated by the submitter. Each month, the company also awarded a pink iPad to the person submitting the most popular entry. People from all over the world could show support for the cause by uploading a pink picture to a virtual world map and thereby turning his or her city pink.

The campaign culminated this fall in London with an advocacy event and award ceremony honoring the BHGI and the other three other beneficiaries.

“The ‘Turn Your City Pink’ campaign was a wonderful, creative way to connect advocates from around the world, fuel global breast cancer awareness and generate funds for lifesaving programs around the world,” said Leslie Sullivan, BHGI managing director, who attended the ceremony. “It was a high honor for the BHGI to be selected by Siemens AG as a beneficiary of their campaign.”

During its 10-year history, the BHGI has produced comprehensive, resource-stratified, evidence-based consensus guidelines that provide a framework for detection, diagnosis, treatment in low- and middle-resource countries and other medically underserved areas around the world and serve as a model for bringing key constituencies together to problem solve.