Cancer Bridges: Beyond the Hospital Walls

A Q&A with Stephanie Ciranni, Executive Director, and HBK Principal, Sean Kocan, CPA.

Beyondmedical care, that is, beyond the hospital walls, the journey for cancer patients and their loved ones requires a great deal and wide range of emotional and social support. That’s the purview of Cancer Bridges, a Pittsburgh nonprofit whose mission is to support cancer patients, families, and friends with programs and services throughout their cancer journey. It’s a mission they have been on since their founding in 1988, one that over that time has reached more than 16,000 “members,” those with a cancer diagnosis, survivors, those who have a loved one with cancer, and the bereaved. In 2023 alone Cancer Bridges provided more than 500 counseling sessions and more than 2,200 programs overall.

Kocan. Stephanie, the reach of your organization is beyond impressive. Tell us a little about your history, how you came to provide so many services to so many people dealing with cancer.

Ciranni. Cancer Bridges began as the Cancer Caring Center in 1988. The primary focus was on the emotional support piece of the cancer journey, through group and one-on-one counseling. There was another organization, called Gilda’s Club, an organization that was started in New York by Gene Wilder in honor of his wife, Gilda Radner. They opened in 2006 and primarily focused on social support and family and youth programming, opening a community center where people looking to escape the isolation that so often accompanies the disease could go. In 2014, that entity, under the name of Our Clubhouse, became an independent nonprofit, and in 2021, Cancer Caring Center and Our Clubhouse merged to become Cancer Bridges. We had been referring members back and forth to get the different type of support they needed, and the executive directors and Board members coordinated the merger to give everyone in our community dealing with cancer one place to go for emotional and social support.

We now offer nearly 200 free programs and activities every month. Our programs are complementary to medical care and support the psychosocial needs of a cancer diagnosis. Anyone impacted by cancer is welcome to join Cancer Bridges and receive the social, emotional, and informational tools they need.

Kocan. I know you have a tremendous community of support in terms of volunteers. Tell us about the makeup of your organization, that is, how you are able to deliver so many programs to so many people?

Ciranni. We have a staff of eleven overseeing programs, administration, and development. They’re split pretty evenly between full-time and part-time. In 2023, we had more than 900 volunteers doing everything from helping at the front desk to running classes. A lot of those are people with a skill they can share, and we’ll create a program around it, for example, a knitting class or yoga. Our team is extended by about 25 facilitators who help run our support groups and specialized programs, and our Board of Directors includes 18 members.

We welcomed more than 900 new members in 2023, and we maintain contact with every member to ensure they have access to the services they need.

Kocan. Despite all those volunteers, your costs of running all your programs and providing services and maintaining your facilities has to continue to increase as you serve more and more members. So how do you raise funds?

Ciranni. We receive no state funding, no government funding at all, and we don’t accept insurance. We rely 100 percent on our three pillars of fundraising. We have five signature fundraising events throughout the year, including a gala in November, a golf tournament in June, a Topgolf event, a vendor fair in the fall, and a wine tasting in the spring. Individuals in the community host third-party fundraisers, like golf tournaments and roundups at restaurants. Secondly, we apply for grants, more than 200 in 2023, mostly local, many from small family foundations in the Pittsburgh area and beyond. And our third pillar is individual donors, the many wonderful people who donate in response to appeals that we send out, simply because they appreciate the work we do, and often in honor of a member who benefited from our services.

Kocan. Stephanie, what would you say is your greatest challenge to continuing this level of service?

Ciranni. Keeping up with the unfortunate need for our support. The instance of cancer in our county alone is 50 percent of our community. We welcomed more than 900 new members in 2023, and we maintain contact with every member to ensure they have access to the services they need.

Our biggest challenge is financially supporting the growth we have seen since the merger, an increase of at least 20 percent a year over the past three years. Previously we were seeing about 15 to 20 new members a month; it’s been between 80 and 100 a month over last two years: from ages 3 to 97; the diagnosed, friends, families, the bereaved; adults, children from throughout Pennsylvania. To be able to continue to offer the level of support we’re providing and the number of programs so that every member has access to the services they need, and raising the money to support all that, that’s an ongoing challenge.

Kocan. You chose to engage HBK as your auditing and accounting firm with the merger. How has it helped to work with an accounting firm experienced in working with nonprofits?

Ciranni. HBK came in and tackled the enormous burden of our first-year audit as a merged organization. The merger was in September so the first quarter of our fiscal year was as two separate organizations. Given our small staff, having that guidance and expertise during that critical audit was crucial as we were also managing bringing two organizations and staffs together during COVID under new leadership. We wanted new vendors to support us as one, new, cohesive organization with new best practices, so we issued an RFP. We got a lot of responses, took our time with our finance committee, and HBK kept bubbling up to the top. Comments from our partners in the community were always positive about them and some of our board members had worked with them in other nonprofits. So we decided to go with them that first year, then a second and third, and we’ve never looked back.

Additionally, the internal control recommendations and support provided also has been critical. HBK was willing to walk me through best practices to create a process to rollout to our board and meet our compliance standards and requirements as a nonprofit. If I have a question I know I can always reach out to the team. They’re responsive and helpful. And they have become part of our community and our events; they appreciate the work we do.