In 2024, The Skin Cancer Foundation launched fresh campaigns, reinvented educational materials and worked to improve health equity so that lifesaving information is made available to more people.
Every year at The Skin Cancer Foundation, our staff works hard to create educational content, raise funds and manage programs with one important aim: to save and improve lives. We work with countless physicians, corporate partners, donors and skin cancer warriors to reach our goals, and we are always grateful for the committed supporters who help us accomplish so much. While there is still plenty of work to be done to educate the public about skin cancer, we like to take a moment at the end of each year to look back on all that we’ve accomplished during the past 12 months.
Read on to learn about The Skin Cancer Foundation’s Work in 2024!
Destination Healthy Skin: A Record-Breaking Finale
This year, The Foundation launched a fundraising campaign to save Destination Healthy Skin, our mobile skin cancer screening and education program. This lifesaving program has been on the road for more than a decade, providing a vital health service to people in need. Our RV has driven 150,000 miles and must be replaced for 2025. Since the program’s launch, volunteer dermatologists have provided 32,000 free skin cancer screenings.
Participants fill out paperwork as they wait their turn for a skin exam on board the RV.
Every year, we count on our engaged physician volunteers and incredible partners and donors to help us deliver as many screenings as possible. And in 2024, our efforts paid off in a huge way. Our volunteer dermatologists performed a total of 2,439 screenings — the most we’ve ever provided in one year! As we say goodbye to our old RV and look to the future, we’re grateful to have been able to give this beloved vehicle the farewell trip it deserved.
Boosting our Digital Impact
This year, we updated SkinCancer.org with several initiatives to raise awareness and improve accessibility. These include the launch of the #SkinCancerIsSerious video campaign for Skin Cancer Awareness Month and the ongoing #LoveYourSkin campaign, which is focused on early detection and prevention for people of color. A newly added “Newly Diagnosed with Skin Cancer” page provides valuable guidance for patients navigating skin cancer for the first time, while a new page on UV Window Film & Tint educates visitors about this important (and often underutilized!) sun protection method. The site now supports 15 languages in addition to English, since we added French, Italian, German, Spanish (Mexican), Portuguese, Russian, Greek, Chinese, South Korean, Japanese, and Hindi this year. Lastly, The Skin Cancer Foundation is now on Bluesky.
Educational Upgrades
While the team accomplished many updates online, we were also busy printing and distributing educational materials for use all around the country. The Skin Cancer Foundation published its annual Journal this Spring, with stories covering important topics ranging from the effect of climate change on our UV exposure to how artificial intelligence may impact how we fight skin cancer. You can find the Journal in dermatologists’ offices around the country, but it’s also available for download on our website. We also produced two new educational brochures: one addressing early detection of skin cancer for men and the other sharing information about skin cancer prevention and detection for Hispanic audiences (produced in both English and Spanish).
Recognizing Skin Cancer Researchers
In 2024, The Skin Cancer Foundation Research Grants program awarded $125,000 to three early career investigators for projects focused on the prevention, detection and treatment of skin cancer. This program has funded more than $2 million in research since 1983, fostering groundbreaking advancements. This year’s grant recipients included:
Todd Nagel Memorial Research Grant Award ($50,000):Andrew Ji, MD, Ichan School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York City
Ashley Trenner Research Grant Award ($50,000):Nicholas Collins, PhD, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York City
Dr. Marcia Robbins-Wilf Research Grant Award ($25,000):Gabriela Andrea Pizzurro, PhD, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut
These grants reflect the Foundation’s ongoing commitment to reducing skin cancer incidence and mortality through research and supporting early stage investigators in skin cancer.
Fun and Fundraising at The Champions for Change Gala
Gala physician co-chairs Jesse Lewin, MD; Julie Karen, MD; Elizabeth Hale, MD and Ariel Ostad, MD.
On May 15, 2024, The Skin Cancer Foundation hosted its annual gala at the Ziegfeld Ballroom in New York City. The gala was an industry highlight during Skin Cancer Awareness Month and gave our community the chance to celebrate all we’ve accomplished together and support our future goals through energetic fundraising initiatives. This year, we raised more than $770,000 to support the organization’s educational campaigns, community programs and research initiatives. The event was by far our most glamorous.
We look forward to a productive and rewarding 2025 and can’t wait to work with our incredible community of supporters on furthering our mission.
