Founding Story

In 2006, Lindsay Avner made history when she became the youngest woman in the country to have a risk-reducing double mastectomy—a choice based on a strong family history of breast and ovarian cancer and a BRCA1 gene mutation that exponentially increased her personal risk of developing these diseases. 

Through her experience, Lindsay found a profound lack of resources for women in her position—young women who had not been diagnosed with breast or ovarian cancer but who wanted to start living proactively. 

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Lindsay asked,

“Why do we have to wait until someone is diagnosed to take action?”

And so, in 2007, Bright Pink was born.

What started as a website and support network for high-risk women evolved into a national organization focused on meeting young women where they are—online, at their doctor’s office, at school, in their workplace, and in their communities—with the actionable information they need to understand their breast and ovarian cancer risk and take appropriate action to reduce their risk. Since Bright Pink’s founding, the organization’s efforts helped to shift the national conversation around breast and ovarian cancer from one focused on awareness and treatment to one focused on action and prevention.

Additionally, Bright Pink has:

  • Helped

    Nearly 1.8 million women understand their breast/ovarian cancer risk and develop a personalized prevention plan.

  • Educated

    More than 110,000 women on the breast/ovarian health basics through in-person educational workshops, with more than half of those being collegiate women.

  • Trained

    More than 20,000 women’s health providers to enable them to better identify and manage breast and ovarian cancer risk for the estimated 72M+ female patients they care for annually.

  • Supported

    More than 6,500 high risk women through one-of-a-kind support programs.

In 2021, Bright Pink transitioned its model from an operating nonprofit to a nonprofit Venture Philanthropy Fund. As a grant making entity, Bright Pink provided critical financial and strategic support to breast and ovarian health initiatives that accelerated, deepened, and expanded the impact of its mission to save women’s lives. This stewardship leveraged Bright Pink’s experience, assets, and expertise to grow capacity and resources within high impact efforts led by others.

Through two Mission Partner cohorts, Bright Pink worked with phenomenal organizations and impacted thousands of women, continuing to put awareness into action.

In 2024, Bright Pink announced a $3.5 million legacy gift to establish the Bright Pink Preventive Risk Outreach And Cascade Testing (PROACT) Program at Stanford Medicine. Led by Drs. Allison Kurian and Jennifer Caswell-Jin at Stanford University, in collaboration with the University of Michigan, the Bright Pink PROACT Program aims to democratize access to cascade testing. This type of genetic testing, which identifies hereditary mutations like BRCA1 and BRCA2 and extends testing to family members, holds enormous potential to save lives from breast and ovarian cancer, yet remains significantly underutilized, with only one-third of those at risk taking action.

The Bright Pink PROACT Program aims to change this. The platform, tested through Stanford’s GIFT Trial, has already significantly increased cascade testing participation rates by enabling mutation carriers to facilitate genetic testing for their relatives. By making sharing family health information—and acting on it—easier, faster, and more accessible than ever, the program intends to empower families nationwide to understand and share their genetic risks, enabling their loved ones to take life-saving preventive action. Lindsay is proud to serve as a Senior Advisor providing strategic guidance by sharing best practices and insights from her nearly two decades of educating young women to be proactive with their breast and ovarian health.

From Bright Pink's first 15 years serving millions of women with life-saving education and resources to its recent work advancing health equity through the Bright Pink Venture Fund, its mission has remained the same: to save young women's lives from breast and ovarian cancer through bold, innovative solutions. The Bright Pink PROACT Program will carry this legacy forward, shaping a better, brighter future for generations to come.

TedX Talk Highlights Our Innovative Model

In her TedX talk, Bright Pink Founder & CEO, Lindsay Avner Kaplan, shares a three-step framework for how to adopt a Radically Proactive approach to your health: Awareness, Assessment, Action. This approach has been a signature part of Bright Pink's work from helping millions of young women become aware of their breast and ovarian health, to providing tools for them to assess their cancer risk, and put a personalized plan into action. Throughout our work in Venture Philanthropy and grant-making, we continued to utilize this same model to source and evaluate our investments:

AWARENESS: We have scoured the market focused on figuring out both the "what" and the "who" to get a deep sense of the most groundbreaking initiatives that exist today and the Mission Partners who have the potential to disrupt the market and help save even more lives.

ASSESSMENT: We have developed rigorous criteria to vet potential investments ensuring strong leadership, a high quality program model, and a focus on equity, sustainability, and impact measurement.

ACTION: We have selected our inaugural cohort of Mission Partners and co-created extraordinary projects which we will be funding with financial and capacity-building investments to reach more women and save more lives.

We hope you will continue to join us in this journey by adopting a Radically Proactive approach to your health and encouraging those you love to do the same.