News News Non-Profit And in this corner, Nancy Brinker!
And in this corner, Nancy Brinker!
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- Published on Wednesday, 05 November 2014 11:31
- Written by Paul Gordon
For more than three decades, Nancy Goodman Brinker has been fighting breast cancer. But now she is using boxing gloves. Literally.
Well, at least the founder of Susan G. Komen For The Cure has found a good way to work off some of the frustration she feels with today's politicians and the continuous decrease of government funding for cancer research.
"I started boxing about eight months ago. I go three or four times a week and just let out my frustration. It really is a great way to rid yourself of anger. And I am angry," said Brinker, former U.S. ambassador to Hungary and the U.S. Chief of Protocol under President George W. Bush who was presented the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, by Barack Obama in 2009.
Her anger is with the political leadership in the country today that she believes is leaving the country stagnant and hurting cancer research. Funding has been cut so drastically that many of today's best young scientists are turning to other endeavors. "We have built this amazing infrastructure and we come have such a long way. But it is the young scientists that the new approaches come from. We have all this amazing science but not enough funding. We have such a long way to go. My job is far from finished," she said.
Brinker spoke to The Peorian before she presented the Distinguished Entrepreneur Lecture at Bradley University on Tuesday. More than 100 students, faculty and staff attended the lecture at the Hayden-Clark Alumni Center. Brinker, born and raised in Peoria, was also presented the school's annual Distinguished Entrepreneur Award.
Brinker was introduced by Bradley President Joanne Glasser, herself a two time breast cancer survivor. Pointing out that Bradley's Turner School of Entrepreneurship is the only free-standing school of entrepreneurship in the country, Glasser said Brinker's work in establishing Susan G. Komen For The Cure was a prime example of successful social entrepreneurship. She further said Brinker was a pioneer in cause-related marketing in making the Race For The Cure the largest fundraising event in the world.
Noting it started as a promise Brinker made to her older sister Susan Komen as she was dying from breast cancer at the age of 36, Glasser said she "went from a bereaved sister to the world leader in the fight to end breast cancer."
In her lecture Brinker said her start in social entrepreneurship came when she was 5 years old. She and Susan were scolded by their mother, Ellie Goodman, for not wanting to be stewards for helping the less fortunate while driving to a charity event. The Goodman girls often accompanied their mother to such events but that day they wanted to go swimming instead.
That night, she said, Susan came to her room and said she figured out a way they could be stewards; they would stage a song-and-dance show in their back yard to raise money for victims of polio. "From then on, I always knew I'd do something with my life to raise money to help others," she said.
Her mentors included her father, Marvin Goodman, who built Metro Centre in Peoria, and her late husband Norman Brinker, founder of a food corporation that included Chili's and other well-known restaurants.
Brinker told her audience how her effort to fight breast cancer started with 11 of her friends who met in her living room, discussed the idea and pooled the money they had on them at the time to get started. They put $200 in a shoe box. To date, that effort has raised more than $2.5 billion for research and awareness. Some of the cancer-fighting drugs on the market today were started 20 to 25 years ago.
Her message was that success would take perseverance, the ability to rely on others and maximizing the abilities of those others. Without those, she added, the Komen organization would not have been able to grow from a dozen women in her living room to hundreds of affiliates worldwide.
In her conversation with The Peorian, Brinker talked of her parents and how each guided her through their entrepreneurial skills and a desire to help others overcome obstacles.
"To be an entrepreneur takes courage, a faith in your abilities to succeed and faith in your country. Entrepreneurship is the heart and soul of America and it represents the freedom to practice what you are passionate about," she said. “If you don’t have that passion, if you don’t love what you are doing, you won’t make it.”
She quickly found her passion in fighting breast cancer, but added she is never satisfied regardless of how much has been done since she started more than 32 years ago. “We’ve been at this more than a generation. I admit thinking when I started that it wouldn’t take too long, but some of the therapeutics coming on the market now were started 20 to 25 years ago. It takes a long time,” she said.
She cited one of her role models, Madame Marie Curie, who said, "One never notices what has been done. One only see what remains to be done."
Therein lies her frustration. She believes researches are close to significant breakthroughs in preventing breast cancer, including the ability to map a woman's genomes if she is predisposed to the disease to know when cells start to turn. But without enough funding that could take longer to become reality.
There has been progress, including an estimate by her organization that its work has helped reduce the number of deaths from breast cancer by 25 percent. The five-year survival rate is now 99 percent and social barriers to getting women tested so that breast cancer can be detected early are coming down. The latter, Brinker said, "has shown early detection works. It works."
Brinker would love for her job to end, but she doesn't see it happening in her lifetime. She refuses to give up the fight, however. "I won't stop. That's the way I am."
