A Conversation with LIVESTRONG’s Doug Ulman

December 03, 2009

As president of  LAF/LIVESTRONG, Doug Ulman has his fingers in a massive number of projects dedicated to the fight against cancer- from public health education to patient outreach to philanthropy and fundraising. A survivor of the disease himself, he’s uniquely aware of the challenges that are posed to overcoming the disease, and uniquely qualified to oversee LIVESTRONG’s efforts to do so.

Doug took a few minutes to talk to the STAGES09.com crew about the show and the Foundation. Read on.

Q: Can you tell me a little bit about how the Foundation and how LIVESTRONG got involved in STAGES?

Doug Ulman: The nexus of this was really Lance and Mark Parker’s love of art. Those two guys really over the last few years spent a lot of time talking about art, going to shows. And it was during a trip down here in Austin they started brainstorming ideas on around how to engage the art world. Thats sort of how STAGES was born. And we’re obviously very grateful for Nike’s support and Mark’s vision on this because it’s turned into something bigger than I think any of us  imagined at the time.

What were your expectations? An initial foray? The first in an ever-increasing series?

DU: I think it’s a combination. One of the things about the Foundation that is probably the most exciting attributes is that we think really big. And obviously that comes from Lance’s personality. But to have so many renowned figures just all step up and agree immediately to be a part of it, you know, it obviously speaks to the cause and speaks to the notion that every one of us is effected. To get all that done in a period of nine months was pretty phenomenal.

Was that response from the artists typical of the way people outside the Foundation respond to LIVESTRONG projects?

DU: I think the response was in line with what we see in other facets of our work, but this was such a new arena for us and we had never done anything in the art world and so we just didn’t know what to expect. So the generosity has been pretty overwhelming.

In terms of how this project functions within the larger Foundation, does the money that gets raised here get earmarked for any particular kind of work that you guys do?

DU: So far it has not been earmarked for a specific project, although we’ve definitely tried to leverage it throughout the course of this year for our international campaign, because so many of the artists come from various parts of the world and because we launched in Paris, it was a natural to sue some of the funds to fuel our grassroots programs around the world.

[And for those readers interested in supporting LIVESTRONG's efforts, there are still a handful of works from STAGES available for sale in Miami - ED]

Is the plan for STAGES to have it continue?

DU: Yeah, I think everybody here is eager to have it continue. We’re trying to brainstorm now, what does it look like? You know, is it just engaging artists at the level of those who participated this year or is it taking this to a much more grassroots level and letting millions of artists and aspiring artists participate? You know there’s just so many different options and I think we want to be careful to not just duplicate that we did this year.

We want to honor and highlight the individuals that participated this year in a significant way. But it definitely proved to us that LIVESTRONG, which started as a cancer-related initiative, it’s proved that that brand now is resonating in various segments of the population. And for us that’s real exciting, because as we all know cancer does not discriminate in any way.

You’re a survivor yourself.

DU: I am.

Have you talked to any of the artists about their stories and their relationships with the disease?

DU: I have – [among others] I’ve spent a lot of time with Eric White. His Mom has had her own cancer experience and has given back and become such a great advocate for the cause.

I think this project has given a lot of the artists an opportunity to express their emotions and feelings in ways maybe they wouldn’t have done otherwise.

We’ve talked to many of the artists at this point now, and you definitely hear that from them. On the one hand, a very general desire to help and on the other hand a very specific desire to pay tribute or acknowledge people in their lives they were affected by.

DU: The one thing I will say about my job is that some people would imagine that, oh you hear those stories all the time. and thats true. And i will tell you it never..the impact is never diminished. The impact of hearing a story of someone who is battling or someone who has lost a loved one or someone who has had a triumphant, sort of survival, none of those stories become dull because they are all individuals, and they’re all families and they’re all people.

And so whether it was connecting with Tom [Sachs] or Eric or Shepard or anybody over the course of the last year, it’s been really inspiring to hear them speak about their own personal stories.

In terms of the Foundation’s wider involvement with art, we’re beginning to learn that Lance is a collector and a pretty voracious one. Are there other people in the Foundation for whom art is a real motivating factor? Is it something that is becoming a larger and larger part of the Foundation?

DU: Absolutely. It sort of started as a reflection of Lance’s passion [but] one of the the things that sort of was congruous to STAGES was that moved into our headquarters here in Austin in march, and we’d never had our own space, we’d always been renting space. We bought an old warehouse in East Austin, which has always been the under-served side of town. We able to purchase an old warehouse and renovate into an incredible space It’s one of the greenest buildings in Austin now.  And one of the benefits of that is we have huge high ceilings and huge open white walls. Lance has been kind enough to rotate some pieces of his own collection through here.

Between that and STAGES it’s really given our team here an opportunity to learn about art. And so we have tours four times a week at the headquarters here, so we have about 100 to 200 people a week who come for tours and they are… you know all the pieces of art are explained, and they’ll rotate through during the course of the year. So it’s really been interesting to give our staff, many of whom are experts in public health, experts in cancer research, for us to all be able to learn about art has been pretty incredible.

What is the Foundation engaged in on a day-to-day basis? There are lots of people reading this because they are interested in the art or they’re interested in the streetwear connection or they’re interested in Lance’s achievement as an athlete -  but they don’t necessarily know what the Foundation actually does.

DU: Totally agree. We are a unique organization in that we have two main areas of focus. One is, direct service and programs to people impacted by cancer. And the other is grassroots advocacy and really trying to create massive social change.

On the direct service and programmatic side, we want to be the first place people call when they have cancer. So if you’re diagnosed with cancer, God forbid, we want you to call here, we have trained social workers and we have very specific programs to help with financial assistance, fertility preservation, psycho-social support, second opinions and matching to clinical trials.

Whatever you might need or whatever you or your family might need, we can provide that immediate support and service off the bat. We will provide that service in great depth to over 10,000 people this year.

In addition to that we have great partnerships, so we have for instance a partnership with the YMCA where if you’re diagnosed with cancer you can go to the YMCA and you can enroll for free in an eight-week physical activity program to get you back in shape, which we fund. It’s called LIVESTRONG at the Y. The results of that in the first two years have been pretty amazing.

We have a program called LIVESTRONG at school. When I was diagnosed with cancer at age 19, I realized that i had never once learned about cancer. No one had ever taught me in school what cancer was.  I remember learning about HIV/AIDS, I remember learning about heart disease, [but I]  never learned about cancer. So here I was in college and so naive to what the disease was.

So we brought together educational experts a few years ago and we wrote curriculums for every grade level, free curriculums, which teachers can download and this year that will be in over a thousand schools. Next year it’s anticipated to get into over 5000 schools.  For first grade the lesson might be that cancer’s not contagious, very basic. Then in high school it might be something more significant.

On the advocacy side, we feel very strongly that by January of next year cancer’s going to be the number one cause of death around the world, and we know that.

Is that because other factors are diminishing? Or is that because the incidences are increasing?

In many parts of the world, we now know, cancer used to be seen as a disease of the Western world, because it just wasn’t seen in the developing world. And we now know that more than 50% of all new cancer cases diagnosed in 2010 are going to be in the developing world. People in the developing world are living longer.

The other thing, unfortunately, is that many countries in the developing world are adopting our lifestyle. They’re adopting fast food, they’re adopting tobacco, they’re adopting things that are going to ultimately cause an enormous cancer burden.

And then three, there are also very different cancers that are prevalent around the world. In Africa the most prevalent cancer for women is cervical cancer. Well, we now have a vaccine for that in this country, unfortunately it’s [generally] too expensive in Africa. So one of the things we’re working on is how can we negotiate with the drug companies to get those vaccines, just like the Gates Foundation has done with malaria and TB and HIV, to people who need it the most.

When we talk about cancer one of the hard things is that it’s such a vast group of hundreds of diseases that we’ve lumped into one term. And cancer in Africa looks very different than it does in Asia, which is very different than cancer in the United States. But yet we feel as an organization, the world has not come together to focus on this, and so to the extent that we can use our brand LIVESTRONG, use Lance’s visibility, and get access to the World Health Organization, the World Bank, political leaders and ignite a grassroots movement we feel really strongly that we are going to be able to put cancer on the public health agenda around the globe and that will lead to significant reduction in the number of people who die every year.

Anything else you’d like to add?

DU: One of the questions i get asked a lot, you know, there are hundreds of cancer organizations, why LIVESTRONG? And the way that I would answer is that if you want to write a check and you want to give money to cancer research or cancer programs or a cancer organization or hospital, there are hundreds of great places that you can do that. And we encourage that.  If you want to get involved, and you want to use your talent, your expertise, your passion to make a difference in someone else’s life, then that’s why there’s LIVESTRONG.

And I think STAGES is the best example of that. If you’re an artist and you want to be a part of this, you know, use your art. If you’re a musician and you want to be a part, use your music, If you’re an athlete, use your athleticism. Whatever it is, we want to be the platform for people to engage, because ultimately we’re never going to make cancer a global priority if we’re only operating within the health and cancer-related space.

Doug, thanks very much for taking the time to do this, we appreciate it.

DU: No problem. Let me know how Miami goes.

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