CEO, Y-ME National Breast Cancer Organization
Margaret has been Chief Executive Officer of Y-ME National Breast Cancer Organization™ since July of 2001. In the six years under Margaret’s leadership, Y-ME has significantly increased its national visibility, enhanced its programs, and has more than quadrupled its operating budget. Margaret has lost several close friends to breast cancer, supported others who are survivors, and lost her father to metastatic prostate cancer. It was partly these experiences that resulted in her accepting the challenge of leading this growing national voluntary health agency.
Margaret has thirty years of not-for-profit experience, including academic, arts, and healthcare organizations—on the local, regional, and national levels. Her experience includes management, fundraising, and affiliate relations. Prior to joining Y-ME, she worked for the Alzheimer’s Association for ten years, holding several different positions on both the local and national levels. During her four-year tenure as Vice President of Development, the contributed income of the national office of the Association more than doubled, increasing from $22 million to $52 million.
In her capacity as CEO for Y-ME, Margaret holds seats on the boards of directors of the National Health Council, the National Breast Cancer Coalition and Human Service Charities of America. In June of 2004, she was named by Crain’s Chicago Business as one of the 100 Most Influential Women in Chicago.
Y-ME is a Chicago-based national nonprofit organization with the mission to ensure, through information, empowerment and peer support, that no one faces breast cancer alone. Y-ME does not raise money for research. Instead, Y-ME is here today for those who can’t wait for tomorrow’s cure.
At the center of the organization is the Y-ME National Breast Cancer Hotline, the only 24/7call center operated by trained peer counselors who are breast cancer survivors and takes nearly 42,000 calls a year. Y-ME counselors do not give medical advice but give emotional support and information about breast cancer, procedures and treatment options. Hotline calls are interpreted in 150 languages.
Each year on Mother’s Day, the organization holds Y-ME’s Race to Empower in Chicago and Y-ME’s Walk to Empower events across the country. Nationwide 40,000 people will raise a total of $7 million this year to help Y-ME fulfill its mission to ensure no one faces breast cancer alone at events in Chicago, Atlanta, Cleveland, Denver, Houston, Miami, Phoenix, Sacramento, San Diego, Seattle, Tulsa and Washington, D.C.
Under Kirk’s leadership, Y-ME received the highest rating of four stars for sound fiscal management two years in a row by Charity Navigator, an independent evaluator of nonprofits. Additionally, Y-ME meets all of the National Health Council’s 41 Standards of Excellence, best practices that encompass the areas of governance, personnel policies, programs finance, fundraising, accounting and reporting, and evaluation.
A native of Kingsport, Tennessee, Margaret holds a Bachelor of Science degree from East Tennessee State University, and a Master of Arts degree from Indiana University. She and her husband, Tom, share a blended family that includes three grown children and four grandchildren.