Bright Pink’s Legacy of Impact
Changing Lives – Educating, Equipping and Empowering High-Risk Young Women With Life-Saving Knowledge & Support
In 2007, fueled by passion, insight, and a deep desire to help others, I founded Bright Pink with one mission: to help save young women’s lives by empowering them to take control of their breast and ovarian health.
At just 23, I made the life-altering decision to undergo a risk-reducing double mastectomy after discovering I carried a BRCA mutation, just like my mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother before me. After going through this experience myself, I realized young women in similar situations needed the tools, knowledge, and support to make their own informed, life-saving decisions.
At the time, I didn’t know what I didn’t know, but I knew there had to be a better way. It was time to change the conversation around breast and ovarian cancer prevention, shifting it from a reactive approach to a proactive one – and empower women to act before cancer could take hold.
Through Bright Pink’s efforts, we created world-class programs that helped nearly 1.8 million women understand their cancer risk through the Webby-award winning AssessYourRisk.org, educated +100,000 young women on the breast and ovarian health basics through Brighten Up Workshops, trained over 20,000 healthcare providers on how to provide better preventive care to their young, female patients, and supported over 6,500 high-risk women through one-on-one peer support program PinkPal, local community-based outreach gatherings, and extensive online resources and tools.
As Bright Pink grew, we learned, pivoted, and evolved with the help of brands, corporations, volunteers, staff, board members, partners, and the women at the center of our mission. Together we built a movement that shifted the national conversation, changed clinical practice, and saved countless lives.
Changing the System – Advancing Breast and Ovarian Health Equity
As time went on, we asked ourselves: how could we scale our impact beyond our own programs, using the assets we’d built – our knowledge, resources, and partnerships – to strengthen the broader fight against breast and ovarian cancer?
We had achieved so much and the world was changing rapidly. There was an explosion of new data, new information, and new ways of thinking about preventive health. It became clear that to truly continue making a difference, we had to evolve. While we had empowered individual women, there were still systemic barriers that disproportionately affected historically marginalized communities. To address these gaps, we needed to scale our impact beyond our own programs and invest in others who were already moving the needle on health equity.
In 2021, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute acquired Bright Pink’s suite of programs and tools and we we transitioned Bright Pink from a direct-service organization to a Venture Philanthropy Fund, investing over $1,000,000 in financial and capacity-building resources into innovative interventions aimed at breaking down barriers to care for women of color and those at increased genetic risk.
With Nueva Vida, we created De Madres a Hijas, a bilingual, culturally responsive workshop helping Latina breast cancer survivors and their daughters understand and reduce hereditary cancer risks.
With Facing our Risk of Cancer Empowered (FORCE), we recruited and trained patient advocates to successfully change state laws and improve access to preventive care.
With TOUCH, The Black Breast Cancer Alliance, we launched the For the Love of My Gurls campaign, reaching 250,000 young Black women with life-saving breast health education.
With The WISDOM Study, we developed a campaign to recruit 30-39 year old women into their groundbreaking study designed to help personalize breast cancer risk assessment.
With Susan G. Komen Stand for H.E.R.- A Health Equity Revolution, we increased access to genetic testing for Black women through trusted, faith-based institutions.
Together, we advanced health equity, reduced disparities, and ensured that the system itself would better serve all women. Our Mission Partners continue to scale these efforts.
Changing the Future – Introducing PROACT and the Next Generation of Impact
Today, I am proud to introduce the next and final chapter of Bright Pink’s story: the Bright Pink Preventive Risk Outreach And Cascade Testing (PROACT) Program at Stanford Medicine. This program represents the culmination of nearly 20 years of work that has taught us one clear truth: awareness in action saves lives. After years of educating and empowering women to take preventive steps, we are proud to make a final legacy gift of $3.5 million to establish this program and sunset our organization.
This gift honors and beautifully captures everything we’ve learned and achieved, and the intent is that it will continue to advance - and amplify - Bright Pink’s mission for years to come.
For the last 18 years, utilizing one’s family health history has been at the heart of Bright Pink’s work. Understanding a woman’s genetic risk unlocks the ability to manage it proactively —and, in many cases, prevent cancer altogether. This belief has driven everything Bright Pink has done: helping women access and act on the vital information that could save their lives.
However, we know all too well that starting these conversations is incredibly difficult. Despite advances in medical technology, cascade genetic testing—which identifies inherited mutations like BRCA1 and BRCA2 and extends testing to relatives—is still underutilized, with only one-third of those who could benefit actually taking action. The burden of initiating these family conversations has often fallen unfairly on patients and mutation carriers. This is where the Bright Pink PROACT Program steps in.
Bright Pink Board Member Dr. Lee Gibbs with Stanford’s Dr. Allison Kurian and University of Michigan’s Dr. Steven Katz at ASCO 2024.
Led by Stanford physicians Dr. Allison Kurian and Dr. Jennifer Caswell-Jin, in collaboration with the University of Michigan, the Bright Pink PROACT Program intends to democratize access to cascade genetic testing. Building on this team's proven platform – which has already significantly increased cascade testing uptake – PROACT features a user-friendly, online tool that helps women easily understand their genetic risks and share this critical, life-saving information with their families. Offering low-cost, at-home genetic testing, PROACT empowers families to take preventive action. The program will first launch in underserved areas of Central California, Atlanta, and Washington, DC, before expanding nationwide.
Since its start, Bright Pink has turned genetic risk awareness into life-saving actions for women and their families. The PROACT Program aims to build on this work, streamlining the process so that understanding and sharing genetic risks becomes simpler and more accessible than ever before.
Additionally, data collected through the PROACT Program will offer critical insights, helping to identify gaps in care, drive policy changes, and advocate for broader systemic reforms to ensure every woman has access to the knowledge and resources she needs to live a long, healthy life.
Bright Pink’s Legacy
Almost 20 years ago, a crucial decision transformed my life and ignited a movement that has since saved countless others. Bright Pink’s gift to establish the PROACT Program is truly full circle: it is not lost on me that had I not been the beneficiary of cascade testing, I would have never had the opportunity to take preventive, life-saving action, or start this organization that has helped millions of others do the same.
While Bright Pink may have started with my story, it was brought to life by each of yours. The Bright Pink community is unlike any other as you can see in the dozens of moments captured in the photos below. Together, we have built a vibrant voice and brand, raised and invested more than $30 million in life-saving programs, partnered with world-class organizations, and worked with the best and brightest to create lasting change. I am eternally grateful to our Board of Directors including Board Chair Janet Foutty and all of the board members, team members, donors, corporate partners and volunteers who have helped advance our mission forward.
But the story – our story – is far from over. While we’re proud of all we’ve accomplished together, there is still more work ahead. For those eager to continue supporting this mission – or for those seeking support – we’ve included links below to help you stay connected and engaged.
Unlike generations before us, we are no longer bound by the legacy of breast and ovarian cancer in our families. Together, we have the power to reshape that legacy into a better, brighter future for all young women – today and for generations to come.
With deep gratitude,
Lindsay Avner Kaplan
Founder, Bright Pink
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Stay Engaged
As we aim to maximize the impact of Bright Pink’s assets in support of the Bright Pink PROACT Program at Stanford Medicine, we will be sunsetting our operations and will no longer be accepting donations. For those wishing to continue supporting Bright Pink’s life-saving mission, we strongly encourage you to donate directly to the PROACT Program. We also continue to support the efforts of our Venture Philanthropy Mission Partners: Nueva Vida; FORCE; TOUCH; The WISDOM Study and Susan G. Komen - Stand for H.E.R.
We remain deeply committed to connecting individuals with the education and support needed for proactive breast and ovarian health. Our resource page, offering key information and support for high-risk individuals, will remain accessible on the Bright Pink website. Additionally, we have collaborated with our long-time friends at FORCE to create a Bright Pink-specific welcome page, featuring curated resources to support our community and connect high risk-young women with support groups, one-on-one assistance, and expert-reviewed information to help make informed medical decisions.
