Pink Ribbons on the Net

The Breast Cancer Awareness Pink Ribbon campaign is now one of the most recognisable fundraising tools in Australia in which many agencies, organisations and commercial operations are unified in the fight against the disease. Its impact overseas, particularly in the USA, is enormous.

So it’s not unusual that this year the Pink Ribbon Day campaign in the US also fuelled a clever business partnership with an American-based company on the Internet.

It started with a simple e-mail that reads:

‘Yahoo.com will donate one dollar ($1) to the Susan B. Komen Foundation for Breast Cancer Research if you go to http://health.yahoo.com and click on the pink ribbon. There are no questions to answer, just click and help save a life. Please forward this message to others who might like to support the cause.’

Yahoo.com had pledged $5000 to the American cancer research cause but the response to the click-to-donate was so great for the month-long campaign that it doubled its donation to $10,000. Each click-to-donate was limited to one donation per day per person.

Susan Woodland, from the Cancer Council of NSW says the Pink Ribbon Day campaign in Australia is now as recognisable as Red Ribbons for Aids.

10,000 women are diagnosed with breast cancer in Australia each year and some 2600 die from the disease.

Woodland says with so many Not for Profits and businesses joining in the fight against breast cancer, the emergence of the click-to-donate is a positive sign of Internet businesses wanting to become philanthropic.

Advertorial – Media and Publicity Training Course- Two for the Price of One!

The Melbourne Media and Publicity Training Course sponsored by Pro Bono Australia will take place on Tuesday November 28, 2000. Broadcast journalist, Lina Caneva and Publicist, Irene Lau will run the full-day course.

The course offers extensive hands on experience with radio and television interviews, taking control and understanding key messages as well as preparing your own publicity campaign. It is a must for all CEOs and those in Not for Profit organisations who deal with the media.

As a special offer for our first Melbourne training day, the course fee is $150 + GST. This is an exclusive one-off offer priced for Not for Profit organisations, and is one tenth of the cost normally charged by the presenters for a full day’s training.

The training commences at 9:30am and includes lunch, morning and afternoon teas. The course is hosted by Pro Bono Australia at our city location, the Mahlab building, 81 City Road, South Melbourne, 3205.

Please e-mail us for the registration form at probono@probonoaustralia.com.au, or call (03) 9682 3456. Applications must be received by Friday 24th November.

Thanks to all those in other states who expressed interest. We are now working on interstate dates for coming months.