Welcome to Breast Cancer Action’s Think Before You Pink® Toolkit!

Breast Cancer Action is the breast cancer industry watchdog. We ignited a movement in 2002 when we were the first to call out pinkwashing and pink ribbon marketing culture. At that time, we coined the term pinkwashing and created the industry-disrupting Think Before You Pink® campaign, and in 2012, BCAction launched the first version of this toolkit to provide our members with useful tools for action to change the conversation about breast cancer. Since 1990, we’ve challenged the impact of pink ribbon marketing and culture and Breast Cancer Awareness Month (BCAM), or as we know it, Breast Cancer Industry Month.

Over two decades of leading this work, our critical take on pink ribbon marketing and culture has transformed the conversation around breast cancer and pink ribbons. However, this doesn’t mean that corporations have stopped using the urgency to end this disease to make a profit from breast cancer. And as we continue to reckon with prevailing injustices that include racism, sexism, homophobia, and climate change, for-profit industries are getting even more manipulative in their tactics to distract from the larger issues at hand while using them to increase their bottom lines.

Inside this toolkit, you will find information and tools to:

  • LEARN about the history of BCAction’s Think Before You Pink® campaign, the politics of breast cancer, and the truth about pinkwashing and cause marketing.
  • SHARE what you learn about critical questions to ask before you buy pink, how to talk to friends and family about walks and runs, FAQs about pink fundraising, and how to effectively use social media to change the conversation.
  • ACT to change the conversation by launching your own Think Before You Pink® campaign, writing a letter to the editor, supporting legislation that will move us closer to a decrease in breast cancer diagnoses, and supporting the vast Breast Cancer Action community of activists who want to end this public health crisis.

We need action that changes the ways profit-driven industries do business; action that regulates toxic substances; and action that holds corporations accountable for the ingredients in their products that increase our risk of developing breast cancer. By joining together to take action that benefits the health of all people most at risk of breast cancer, not just individuals, we can prevent future generations from receiving a breast cancer diagnosis.

Download a PDF of BCAction’s Think Before You Pink 2022 Toolkit.