2011: The Year We Almost Didn't Make It

The beginning of a new year hits differently depending on which side of your goals you land on.

If you crushed year-end fundraising, January feels like exhaling. The books close clean. The mission feels funded. You've bought yourself breathing room.

Other times, January brings something else entirely. The numbers are final. The hope is gone. You're left looking at what didn't work and wondering if the organization survives another quarter.

By the end of 2011, Stupid Cancer had $13,000 in the bank.

That number still sits heavy when I say it out loud.

It wasn't just a low balance. It was the weight of a year that had gone completely sideways. Behind the scenes, people were updating resumes. Conversations got careful. Nobody was optimistic about what came next or if there would even be a next.

We were still operating as I'm Too Young For This! Cancer Foundation. The mission was solid. The work mattered. But 2011 closed with a six-figure net loss that wiped out most of what little cushion we'd built. By year's end, survival wasn't a strategy. It was a question.

There was no dramatic meltdown. Just the slow, grinding realization that passion and purpose don't pay rent. The work was important. But importance doesn't guarantee sustainability.

Then 2012 happened.

Early that year, we made a decision that felt reckless given where we stood. We hired a consultant. At a moment when the future felt fragile, we chose to invest in help instead of circling the wagons.

That decision changed everything.

In the first quarter of 2012, we raised nearly half a million dollars. More importantly, confidence came back. The organization stabilized. Momentum replaced the anxiety that had been crushing us for months.

That was also when we fully stepped into the name Stupid Cancer. The shift wasn't cosmetic. It was clarity. It reflected a bolder, sharper version of who we were and what we stood for. It marked the beginning of a rebound that would define the years that followed.

2011 was the year we almost didn't make it.

2012 was the year we rose anyway.

And just as the ground started to steady, we made another decision that would define what came next: we took our regional conference to Las Vegas, locked in a road trip partnership with Volkswagen, and committed to something bigger and far more public than anything we'd ever attempted, knowing we had nothing left to lose but our jobs, and that we weren't done yet.