American Cancer Society (ACS)

To comply with government mandates and guidelines to slow the spread of the covid-19 virus, we temporarily closed offices, discovery shops, hope lodges and postponed or canceled in-person fundraising events. We suspended patient assistance programs to prioritize the safety of Cancer patients, volunteers and employees. Cancer research was limited due to closure of research facilities. The reduction in fundraising events caused a significant revenue decline. In response, we implemented cost containment measures to reduce expenses. We made a strategic decision to reduce and realign our physical and staffing footprint aimed at increasing our mission impact. Overall, our actions minimized the impact of the revenue decline resulting in an increase to our total net assets. For research accomplishments see schedule o.research programs provide financial support to fund and conduct research into the causes of Cancer; how it can be prevented, detected early, and treated successfully; how to improve the quality of life for people living with Cancer; and to advocate for laws and policies that help further Cancer research. Our research program expenses included both our extramural research grants and intramural program, which included our comprehensive Cancer prevention study (cps-3).

Prevention programs provide the public and health professionals with information and education to prevent Cancer occurrence and to reduce the risk of developing Cancer. Prevention expenses included activities such as our ongoing advocacy efforts to increase certain state tobacco taxes through our grants to affiliates and promoting the human papillomavirus (hpv) vaccination in addition to general prevention work.

Patient support programs assist Cancer patients and their families in an effort to ease the burden of the disease for them. Expenses included in our specific assistance to individuals are patient support programs, such as our 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year national Cancer information center, and our hope lodge facilities, which provide free, high quality, temporary lodging for patients and their caregivers close to treatment centers, thereby easing the emotional and financial burden of finding affordable lodging.