LinkedIn For Good – Raising Awareness for Breast Cancer
Many of us try to keep our work and personal lives separate, but sometimes having compassionate professionals around you when you’re confronted with something a traumatic as cancer can make a world of a difference.
Last month, Hala Moddelmog, the President and Chief Executive Officer at Susan G. Komen for the Cure, was kind enough to post a featured question here on LinkedIn to help raise awareness. The question she asked our 30 million plus users was:
“What's the most effective method you’ve seen a non-profit use to raise awareness for their cause?“
Hala received nearly 400 passionate responses to her question during the week it was posted on our site. We’re hopeful that those of you who saw the question and/or responded to it were able to help get the word out about breast cancer awareness.
This month, in an effort to show that cancer awareness ought to be something we ought to think about 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, Robin Roberts who is the Co-Anchor of ABC News' "Good Morning America" and a breast cancer survivor herself posted her own featured question on LinkedIn:
“When it comes to cancer what have you done to help a co-worker cope?”
The question was posted this morning and in less than an hour Robin has already received responses from a number of you that were willing to share your stories and support for LinkedIn members that are fighting the “C” word.
In addition to Robin’s question this week, LinkedIn is also running a poll on the site asking:
“If a co-worker got cancer, what would your first reaction be?”
When this post went to print more than 500 of you had already cast your vote and let us know your thoughts.
On a personal note, in October my dad’s girlfriend (Cynthia) got diagnosed with breast cancer. For Cynthia, and for our family, cancer does not fit squarely into October or one month of awareness. It’s spilling into November both literally and figuratively with her pending mastectomy taking place this week. This will undoubtedly be a battle we’ll fight together for many weeks and months to come, but in my heart I know it will draw us closer and hopefully make our extended family unit even stronger. I’ll be sending the link to this post to Cynthia. Hopefully it will put a smile on her face before her surgery on the 7th.
Part of what’s helped me this past month is an awesome group of supportive co-workers. Many of them have had their own lives touched by cancer. Sometimes it’s those little kind words we say to a co-worker in passing that help them get through a rough patch. On October 24th a large number of LinkedIn employees purchased Pink LinkedIn shirts and proudly wore them to work in a show of our support. The proceeds from the sales of the shirts went toward breast cancer awareness. We should be posting a group photo of all of us in our passionate pink splendor soon, so stay tuned to the blog for that update!