Who We Are

Website: https://www.cancer.org/ 

The American Cancer Society is the leading cancer-fighting organization with a vision of ending cancer as we know it, for everyone. We are the only organization working to improve the lives of people with cancer and their families through advocacy, research, and patient support, to ensure everyone has an opportunity to prevent, detect, treat, and survive cancer. Learn more about who we are, what we do, and our plans for the future by exploring the areas below.

Our Mission

The mission of the American Cancer Society is to improve the lives of people with cancer and their families through advocacy, research, and patient support, to ensure everyone has an opportunity to prevent, detect, treat, and survive cancer.

Our Core Values

The American Cancer Society Core Values are at the heart of what we do. These guiding principles have shaped and will shape our past, present, and future. We commit to living these Core Values in all our words, actions, and decisions.

Integrity

Driven by truth, ethics, and fact of science 

Compassion

Caring for and supporting those touched by cancer 

Courage

Undeterred by challenges and bold in action 

Diversity

Intentionally striving for equity through inclusion and respect

Meet Our Executives

Our mission is to eliminate cancer as a major health problem by preventing cancer, saving lives, and diminishing suffering from the disease, through research, education, advocacy, and service. Meet the executives who are dedicated to helping us free the world from the pain and suffering from cancer.

American Cancer Society Fact Sheet

About your American Cancer Society

The American Cancer Society is the leading cancer-fighting organization with a vision of ending cancer as we know it, for everyone. We are the only organization working to improve the lives of people with cancer and their families through advocacy, research, and patient support, to ensure everyone has an opportunity to prevent, detect, treat, and survive cancer.

We provide the support and guidance people impacted by cancer need at every step – from increasing access to screening at the local, state, and federal levels and advocating for more affordable health care to guiding patients and caregivers through our free 24/7 helpline and helping them get the treatment they need by offering free transportation and lodging. In addition, we fund and conduct research so people in every community have the opportunity to prevent, detect, treat and survive cancer.

How the American Cancer Society is organized

The American Cancer Society, Inc., is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation governed by a single Board of Directors that is responsible for setting policy, establishing long-term goals, monitoring general operations, and approving the organizational outcomes and allocation of resources. The Board is composed entirely of volunteers from the medical and lay communities.

With a presence in more than 21,000 communities, the American Cancer Society is working to support people facing all types of cancer, in every community. We help mobilize communities in the cancer fight, delivering potentially lifesaving programs and services and raising crucial funds to support our mission.

How donations help fight cancer

The American Cancer Society is committed to our obligation to spend donor dollars wisely. Here’s a year-end glimpse at how your donations helped impact millions of lives – by the numbers. The most recent data is from the year ended December 2022.

Fulfilling our mission

Overall, in 2022, 81% of American Cancer Society resources were invested in patient support, discovery, and advocacy. The other 19% of resources were used to fund our management and general expenses, and fundraising expenses.

Resources allocated to program services (totaling 81% of American Cancer Society resources) include:

Resources allocated to supporting services (totaling 19% of American Cancer Society resources) include:

Volunteers

As a global grassroots force, the American Cancer Society relies on the strength of millions of dedicated volunteers. From leadership volunteers who set strategy and policy to community volunteers who organize special events and patient support programs, our volunteers, supported by professional staff, drive every part of our mission. Our diverse volunteer opportunities empower people from every community to play a role in saving lives, while fulfilling their own.

How the work of the American Cancer Society improves lives

Our mission delivery efforts are focused on the critical areas of discovery, advocacy, and patient support. Despite the incredibly challenging start of the decade, we are still seeing progress being made in the fight against cancer.

As the nation’s leading cancer-fighting organization, the American Cancer Society (ACS) is committed to ending cancer as we know it, for everyone.

We are working to achieve this goal through targeted efforts that include investments in research, improving equitable access to care, urging people to resume cancer screening, and working to reduce long-standing disparities in cancer prevention, diagnosis, and treatment outcomes. Globally, we convene government and civil society stakeholders, share our expertise, invest resources, and design programs and initiatives to reduce the stark disparities in cancer outcomes in low-and middle-income countries (LMICs), particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, India, and Colombia.

Below are some examples of our efforts to reduce the cancer burden in every community:

Research

The American Cancer Society is the largest funder of cancer research grants in the United States outside of the federal government, investing more than $5B over 75 years. We launch innovative, high-impact research to find more – and better – treatments, uncover factors that may cause cancer, and improve the quality of life for people facing cancer.

Cancer Prevention

We fund and conduct research to discover how people can take steps to reduce their cancer risk, and provide information on the causes of cancer – from environment to lifestyle choices to genetics, and more. We work to encourage healthy lifestyle choices – like avoiding tobacco, eating healthy, and being physically active – that could help to eliminate approximately 50% of deaths from cancer.

Cancer Screening and Early Detection

We publish cancer screening guidelines to help people detect cancer early, when it may be easier to treat.

Access to Care

We believe no one should die from cancer because they cannot get the quality care they need. We are working to increase screening and reduce cancer risk for underserved communities and boost our investment in our transportation and lodging programs to help patients receive treatment and support.

Patient and Caregiver Services

We provide guidance and support to patients and caregivers at every step of their cancer journey. From free rides to treatment, places to stay when treatment is far from home, and our live 24/7 helpline, we’re here for everyone with cancer questions and concerns, when and where they need us.

Survivorship

We are transforming the care and long-term health of the over 18 million cancer survivors in the US through innovative ways to mitigate the harmful long-term effects from cancer and cancer treatment.

We’re making progress

By taking what we’ve learned through research and translating it into action, we’ve contributed to a 33% decrease in the overall US cancer death rate since 1991. That means that we helped avoid nearly 4.1 million cancer deaths during that time.

To learn more about our Board of Directors and how we use our donor dollars to move our mission forward, download our Annual Report and other available financial statements and forms.

Financial information for the American Cancer Society

Annual Report

Available online at:

https://www.cancer.org/about-us/financial-governance-information/stewardship-report.html

You can also call us to have a copy of the report sent to you free of charge.

Making a difference

The American Cancer Society directly and measurably improves the lives of people with cancer and their families. Thanks to those who generously invest in our mission, we are working to end cancer as we know it for everyone, by ensuring that all people have a fair and just opportunity to prevent, find, treat, and survive cancer.

Learn about the impact we are making on the cancer burden, and on the lives of those impacted by the disease. We are dedicated to using every single donor dollar wisely to fund and provide the critical programs and services that people count on every day.

https://www.cancer.org/about-us/what-we-do.html

Other resources

What We Do

While most people know us for our research, we do so much more. We work to end cancer as we know it, for everyone. We advocate for lifesaving policy changes. We promote healthy lifestyles to help you prevent cancer. We research cancer and its causes to find more answers and better treatments. We provide information, answers, and support to people in every community who have been touched by cancer. And we do it all 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Our History

The early years

The American Cancer Society was founded in 1913 by 10 doctors and five laypeople in New York City. It was originally called the American Society for the Control of Cancer (ASCC). At that time, a cancer diagnosis meant near-certain death. Rarely mentioned in public, this disease was steeped in fear and denial. Doctors sometimes did not even tell their patients they had cancer, and patients often did not tell their friends and families that they had been diagnosed with it.

The American Cancer Society’s founders knew they had to raise public awareness about cancer if progress was to be made against this disease. Despite the enormity of their task, our founders and their colleagues began writing articles for popular magazines and professional journals; publishing Campaign Notes, a monthly bulletin of cancer information; and recruiting doctors throughout the country to help educate the public.

It was in these early years that the American Cancer Society first used its now-iconic Sword of Hope symbol, which is still part of the organization’s logo today. The sword icon came from a 1928 nationwide poster contest sponsored by the ASCC and the New York City Cancer Committee. George E. Durant of Brooklyn won the contest, receiving a first prize of $500. He selected the sword to express the crusading spirit of the cancer control movement. The twin-serpent caduceus, which forms the handle of the sword, emphasizes the medical and scientific nature of the American Cancer Society’s work. Classically, twined serpents represent healing of the sick and creativity of the healthy.

Over the past 100 years, the logo has changed many times. Our most updated logo offers a modernization and simplification of the sword and serpent combination but continues to represent an impactful and cohesive entity at its heart: thousands of workers, caregivers, and volunteers united under the goal of adding years to life and life to years.

The Women’s Field Army

In 1936, Marjorie G. Illig, an ASCC field representative and chair of the General Federation of Women’s Clubs Committee on Public Health, made an extraordinary suggestion. She proposed creating a legion of volunteers whose sole purpose was to wage war on cancer. The Women’s Field Army, as this organization came to be called, was an enormous success. Its recruits donned khaki uniforms, complete with insignia of rank and achievement, and went out into the streets to raise money and educate the public.

In 1935, there were 15,000 people active in cancer control throughout the United States. At the close of 1938, there was about 10 times that number. More than anything else, it was the Women’s Field Army that moved the American Cancer Society to the forefront of voluntary health organizations.

New directions

In 1945, the ASCC was reorganized as the American Cancer Society. It was the beginning of a new era for the organization. World War II was over – the single greatest threat to modern democracy had been defeated – and the nation could at last focus its attention on the public health enemy at home. Many believed it was time for another bold move.

In 1946, philanthropist Mary Lasker and her colleagues met this challenge, helping to raise more than $4 million for the Society – $1 million of which was used to establish and fund the American Cancer Society’s groundbreaking research program. With the aid and assistance of dedicated volunteers like Lasker and Elmer Bobst, our research program began to bear fruit. In 1947, we also began our famous Cancer Signals campaign, a public education effort about the signs and symptoms of cancer.

Making progress

Around the same time the Cancer Signals campaign began, Dr. Sidney Farber, one of the American Cancer Society’s first research grantees, achieved the first temporary cancer remission in a child with acute leukemia using the drug aminopterin, thus opening the modern era of chemotherapy for cancer treatment. It was just the beginning of how scientists supported by the American Cancer Society supported early in their careers would go on to make great leaps in understanding and stopping cancer. 

American Cancer Society-funded researchers have contributed to nearly every major cancer research breakthrough we’ve seen the organization's research program began more than 75 years ago. They’ve helped establish the link between cancer and smoking; demonstrated the effectiveness of the Pap test; developed cancer-fighting drugs and biological response modifiers such as interferon; dramatically increased the cure rate for childhood leukemia; proven the safety and effectiveness of mammography; and so much more. Since 1946, the American Cancer Society has invested more than $5 billion in research, recognizing and providing the funding for innovative researchers, 53 of whom went on to win the Nobel Prize for their groundbreaking work.

Expanding our reach

In the 1960s and 70s, the American Cancer Society began to expand its reach as an organization, working even harder to involve all sectors in its efforts to fight back against the disease.

In the 60s, we were instrumental in the development of the Surgeon General’s report on the link between smoking and cancer when early American Cancer Society-sponsored studies confirmed the connection. This upheaval in the perception of smoking laid the groundwork for tobacco control progress – and for the corresponding lives saved – that continues today. 

Our advocacy later contributed to the passage of the National Cancer Act in 1971, which granted special funds and authority to expand the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and revolutionized the war on cancer. With the development of the NCI, the American Cancer Society also had to adapt to a new role – that of filling in the gaps of the federal government’s focus in areas such as cancer prevention and education.

Likewise, as National Institutes of Health funding for young investigators has diminished, the American Cancer Society has allocated more research grants to that generation, helping promising young medical researchers enter the cancer field. Today, we remain a global leader in the fight against cancer, with a vision to end cancer as we know it, for everyone. Our mission is to Improve the lives of people with cancer and their families through advocacy, research, and patient support, to ensure everyone has an opportunity to prevent, detect, treat, and survive cancer.

The American Cancer Society is proud to have contributed to the work that has resulted in a 33% drop in the overall cancer death rate in the United States. That drop equates to 3.8 million fewer cancer deaths between 1991 and 2023.

Learn more about our 110 years of wins against cancer.

Financials & Governance

The American Cancer Society invests hundreds of millions of dollars every year to fight cancer on a global scale and has earned the public trust by demonstrating a history of careful and proven financial stewardship for over a century. We raise nearly all of our money through private individual donations, which helps to ensure our independence. We encourage people to look at how effectively we deliver on our mission, in addition to how efficiently we operate. We are deeply committed to reporting to our “shareholders” – the millions of people who support us each year.

American Cancer Society is committed to efficiency and transparency and relies on direct mail (both postal and online) and special events including Relay For Life, Making Strides Against Breast Cancer, DetermiNation, Coaches Vs. Cancer, and CEOs Against Cancer to maintain our strong volunteer and donor base as well as educate and inform the public regarding cancer prevention, early detection, and patient programs offered and available to them. We also use these events to drive a call to action for cancer prevention and screenings as well as public policy advocacy. This education and information delivery is inherent in our mission statement – to improve the lives of people with cancer and their families through advocacy, research, and patient support, to ensure everyone has an opportunity to prevent, detect, treat, and survive cancer.

We communicate and educate by postal mail, digitally, telephone, and in person at our events not only to generate income but to fulfill our mission. As a result, in accordance with the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) guideline and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) guidelines, we allocate a portion of our direct mail and special event costs to program services. 

As a nonprofit organization that is exempt from federal taxation, we ensure donors’ money is spent as efficiently and effectively as possible. For more information regarding these cost allocations, we invite you to view our audited financial statements where we disclose additional information in accordance with FASB. Additionally, please see Schedule G of our Form 990 for more information regarding Relay For Life and Making Strides Against Breast Cancer. 

Press Kit

Our online press kit provides basic information for media interested in the latest information about The American Cancer Society, including its history, the latest cancer statistics, and research milestones. If you would like more information regarding The American Cancer Society, please contact one of our national media relations representatives.

• History of the American Cancer Society
  
• Our Mission Statement
  
• American Cancer Society Fact Sheet
  
• Cancer Statistics, including Cancer Facts & Figures
• The American Cancer Society's Research Accomplishments

Contact Us

Call: 1-800-227-2345
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