We are pleased today to announce an important step forward for The Myeloma Beacon.

The Beacon is now non-profit.

More importantly, The Beacon is a new and different kind of myeloma-related non-profit.

To ensure that our work on behalf of the myeloma community is unhindered by any conflicts of interest, The Beacon will not now, nor will it in the future, accept funding from pharma­ceu­tical com­pa­nies or any other organizations that may have a significant financial interest in the Beacon’s work.

We believe this commitment is increasingly necessary given the growing complexity of the myeloma treat­ment en­viron­ment, and the conflicts of interest so prevalent among traditional sources of myeloma-related in­­for­ma­tion and support.

Although The Beacon is changing as an organization, a lot is staying the same.

In our reporting of myeloma-related news, we will con­tinue to focus on the results of scientific research.

We will con­tinue our policy of staying clear of the political arena.

We will maintain our commitment to the privacy of our readers, community members, and donors.

And we will retain our focus on serving the myeloma community globally, not just at the national level.

We are excited about the changes we are putting in place. We believe they will enable The Beacon to have an even greater positive impact on the patients, caregivers, and medical professionals we serve.

For that impact to occur, however, we will need your support. Our fundraising goals for the upcoming month and rest of the year are comparatively modest, so we hope you will seriously con­sider making a donation.

We also hope you will feel free to share with us any thoughts and ideas you may have about the work we do and ways you and others can become more involved in our efforts.

Given the significance of our announcement today, we have taken time in the rest of this article to provide addi­tional back­ground in­­for­ma­tion and details of our plans. We realize there is a lot to digest in the article, but we believe the community deserves a full understanding of why we are moving forward the way we are.

Cementing Our Commitment To The Myeloma Community

Since the Beacon’s founding ten years ago, we always have had a commitment to accuracy in the work we do on behalf of the myeloma community.

A key part of this commitment has been making certain there is balance in the in­­for­ma­tion and support we provide, and that The Beacon is free of any promotional bias.

Thus, when pharma­ceu­tical com­pa­nies offered to sponsor The Beacon in return for us organizing “patient education events” that were basically promotional events for the com­pa­nies’ prod­ucts, we said “No thank you.”

Likewise, when a prominent myeloma specialist offered to write a regular column for The Beacon, but only if they also could use the opportunity to promote their treat­ment center and the research they have done related to certain myeloma drugs, we said “No thank you.”

For us, there never has been any question that serving the best interests of myeloma patients and their families requires a commitment to being as impartial and “promotion-free” as possible.

We believe the need for such a commitment is greater than it ever has been.

There are now more treat­ment options for multiple myeloma patients than ever before. Companies are spending hundreds of millions of dollars on marketing to ensure their prod­ucts are used in the largest number of patients possible, and for as long as possible.

Yet so many of the resources patients and physicians turn to for insight into the increasingly complex treat­ment en­viron­ment, and to fund research for the future, depend on funding provided by the pharma­ceu­tical industry.

Commercial publications depend on pharma­ceu­tical com­pany advertising to fund the medical news and education they provide. Myeloma-related non-profits can rely on “healthcare com­pany” funding for a third or more of their budgets.

This is why we at The Beacon came to believe it was time for a truly independent force in the myeloma community. It’s why we have put in place the policy that The Beacon will not now, nor will it in the future, accept grants or donations from pharma­ceu­tical com­pa­nies, bio­technology com­pa­nies, or organizations substantially affiliated with such com­pa­nies.

The Beacon also will not accept financial support from other organizations that have a substantial financial interest in the work we do serving the myeloma community.

All of this is why we believe The Myeloma Beacon is now not just a non-profit, but a new and very different kind of myeloma-related non-profit – one committed to ensuring that its efforts are free of any conflicts of interest and free from the appearance of any conflicts of interest.

Evolution, Not Revolution

Although the new Myeloma Beacon is very different from other myeloma-related non-profits, at its core it con­tinues to be the same Beacon you have known thus far.

In the news we report and the support we provide the community, we will con­tinue to emphasize the findings of scientific research. Indeed, we have always focused on such research, because it is the most reliable source of impartial and objective in­­for­ma­tion.

Beacon readers also will not be seeing any dramatic change in our editorial “voice” vis-à-vis the pharma­ceu­tical industry. The Beacon in the past has not placed much emphasis on the industry as a topic in and of itself. We have reported on prod­ucts developed and marketed by the industry, and thus the activities of specific com­pa­nies, but the industry as a subject itself has never been the focus of our attention. This will con­tinue to be our approach. The one exception is that we may explain from time to time why we feel a conflict-of-interest-free perspective on myeloma-related issues is important.

We also will con­tinue with several important policies we have pursued in the past.

For example, The Beacon will con­tinue to stay clear of the political arena. There should never be any question as to the motivation for the news we report, in­­for­ma­tion we provide, or research we fund. By staying clear of politics, lobbying (“advocacy”), and all related activities, we hope to leave no question that our motivation is simple: to spread and advance knowledge that improves the treat­ments, care, and support available to myeloma patients worldwide.

We also will con­tinue to emphasize the privacy of our readers. If you want to subscribe to email updates from The Beacon, or join our online discussion forum, all you ever have needed to do is give us your email address. We don’t ask for your mailing address, telephone number, age, name of your doctor, or other private in­­for­ma­tion.

Similarly, we host our discussion forum on our own webservers, not on social media platforms well known for their privacy issues. And, when we display donor or fundraising in­­for­ma­tion on our website or in our emails, we have not in the past, we do not now, and we will not in the future make use of advertising networks, which track and market in­­for­ma­tion about your activities at just about every site you visit on the Internet.

Finally, The Beacon will con­tinue its efforts to serve the global myeloma community. We have never seen multiple myeloma as something that should be approached from a single-country perspective. The knowledge and research that advance care for myeloma patients know no borders, and we reflect that perspective in our own efforts.

Our Changing Relationship With You

The change taking place at The Beacon brings with it a change in how we approach our rela­tion­ship with you.

Before we were a non-profit, our approach to our rela­tion­ship with you was mainly to serve you. We reported on the latest myeloma-related news; we curated new and ongoing discussions in the Beacon’s forum; and we collaborated with a small, talented group of patient columnists and myeloma specialists who have generously shared their experiences and perspectives with you.

We have not asked you for donations, or to do fundraisers for us, or even to help us with smaller things, such as moderating forum discussions. For financial support, our goal was to rely primarily on sponsorships from pharma­ceu­tical and bio­tech com­pa­nies.

Our perspective was: Myeloma patients and caregivers have enough on their plates. Let’s try to serve their needs without asking them to do more than they’re already doing.

In some ways, this approach worked. We have published 1,200 news articles, almost 800 patient and physician columns, and 50,000 forum posts, including more than 1,700 forum contributions by the myeloma specialists who serve as Beacon Medical Advisors.

The Beacon also hosts extensive listings of medical meeting presentation and poster titles, and serves up hundreds of conference presentations and posters.

In an important way, however, the approach we took fell short. We never achieved the level of financial support from industry that was needed to sustain our service to the myeloma community.

In the entire 10 years The Myeloma Beacon has been in existence, industry support for our work has totaled less than $200,000.

Yes, that’s not a typographical error: $200,000 over the entire 10 years, or an average of $20,000 per year.

We have learned the hard way that it is very hard to attract industry support when you are as committed as we are to being objective, unbiased, and promotion-free.

For many years, the Beacon’s founder financed the Beacon’s work out of his own pockets in addi­tion to work­ing full time writing at The Beacon. After spending literally hundreds of thousands of dollars his savings to ensure The Beacon could con­tinue serving the myeloma community, it became clear it was time to take a different path.

Which brings us back to today’s announcement, and to the Beacon’s new rela­tion­ship with you.

For the Beacon to con­tinue serving you and the rest of the myeloma community, it will need your support. This especially will be the case during the next several months, when we will be investigating potential support from (independent) foundations and government agencies.

Our fundraising goals are modest, and we will be transparent about both our goals and how well we’re achieving them. Our fundraising goal for the coming month, for example, is just $6,000, and we aim to raise $59,000 for the entire year.

Longer term, we hope to be more ambitious with our fundraising goals, so that we can expand the ways we help patients, caregivers, and medical professionals.

In the near term, you can make donations to The Beacon at our donation page, and you can track our fundraising progress at our “2018 Fundraising: Goals And Updates” page.

You also can share fundraising ideas and other suggestions with us at our general email address, . We look forward to hearing your thoughts and feedback, and you can expect to hear more from us in the coming months about what we are doing, how patients, caregivers, and medical professionals like you are helping us, and why we feel our work is important.