MJ DeCoteau | Founder and Executive Director, Rethink Breast Cancer | Changing the system

October is Breast Cancer Awareness month and behind it is a reality that affects women first and foremost - directly and indirectly. That’s why we're proud to share that we have partnered with Rethink Breast Cancer for a special series on The Brand is Female podcast today and in the coming weeks.

Today's guest is MJ DeCoteau, MJ is the Founder and Executive Director at Rethink Breast Cancer. She is responsible for the overall direction, management, fundraising strategy and creative vision of an increasingly bigger and bolder Rethink. While she’s won numerous “trailblazer” awards for her work at Rethink and is known for modernizing the breast cancer campaign, MJ is also a cat-loving, Jane Austen-reading, ’40s musical-watcher. She loves winter snuggled up at home with her husband and daughter, but always the adventurer has an Arctic expedition on her bucket list.

Rethink Breast Cancer aims to empower, educate, and support all young people impacted by breast cancer. In this series, we will be discussing and re-thinking the narrative around breast cancer in today’s world. As part of this series, you will meet women who are making a difference as leading changemakers in the community. Everyone on the Rethink Breast Cancer team is focused on offering relevant and accessible spaces for the new generation of young people affected by breast cancer, and we are so happy we can share their knowledge on this platform.

Thanks to our partners at Rethink Breast Cancer for their support of this episode of The Brand is Female.

This season of The Brand is Female is brought to you by TD Bank - Women Entrepreneurs. TD is proud to support women entrepreneurs and help them achieve success and growth through its program of educational workshops, financing and mentorship opportunities! Find out how you can benefit from their support!

Full Episode Transcript

Eva Hartling: MJ. It's a pleasure having you on The Brand is Female today. Thanks so much for joining me this morning.

MJ Decoteau: I am so happy to be here and chat.

Eva Hartling: We always start these conversations by going back in time. And I'm curious to know in your case, and this probably would have been hard to predict as a young woman, but did you ever think you'd be working and making a difference in a field related to health and possibly related to breast cancer awareness specifically?

Or were you envisioning a completely different future for yourself?

MJ Decoteau: I envisioned quite a different future. I don't know how far back in time you want to go like childhood. I had dreams of owning a figure skating boutique. I was a competitive figure skater and I remember putting that in our grade eight-time capsule, you had to say, what you thought you'd be doing?

And I thought I would be owning a figure, skating boutique, maybe designing skating costumes. So I definitely didn't end up doing that. And, then I pursued, I was an English major. I thought I'd be an English professor. At one point I also always loved magazines. I collected many fashion magazines starting in my teenage years.

And I also, that was in the back of my head too. Maybe I could work for a cool magazine, So I did not expect to be running a breast cancer organization.

Eva Hartling: And let's talk about what got you there. And I'm also curious to know, prior to founding and there is, a personal story. I think that really inspired the work you do today and inspired your intention with creating rethink breast cancer.

But I'm curious what was your path in getting you there? And then I do want to hear about that personal story that started it all,

MJ Decoteau: basically. Yeah. I can start with the path. I, it's hard to talk about the path because without mentioning the personal cause it started with the personal, but we, I moved to Toronto this.

Speaks to my personality. I grew up in Saskatoon. I had spent some time in Toronto than I was back in Saskatoon to do my masters. And I did one on a mentioned, I was an English major literary and cultural studies thesis. Very much, postmodern. It was very esoteric and I, as much as I loved loved academia in certain respects, I knew.

I didn't want to do it forever. So I did have this interest in magazines and I did have a communications professor who wants told me, to be. To be a good writer, to be a journalist. You really need to be a good writer. You need to read a lot and write a lot. So he was filling amount on journalism school and he was like just keep doing what you're doing.

Long story short. I After grad school, I ended up applying to Toronto life magazine for their three-month unpaid internship program. There was a little bit of a stipend and I actually wrote a passionate letter and I thought, are they going to take someone from Saskatoon, to go work at Toronto life magazine.

But I got the interview and I got the internship, which was super exciting and we moved me and my husband, we had just been married, not that long. We moved to Toronto based on me getting a three-month unpaid internship at Toronto life magazine. Wow. He had been, did his degree, but was working booking live.

Music at a live entertainment club. A really cool club. And he was interested in the music industry and there's nothing, opportunities in Toronto that he wouldn't have in Saskatoon. So that was part of it too. But it was funny because my dad was like, his attitude was like, they'll take the city by storm.

Of course, they should do this. And I think my husband's family was really. What are they doing? What's going on? So during that three months, the unpaid internship was back in the day where, really we were a glorified fact-checker and, doing some research. And I remember going into the interview, the computer room that the interns got to share, and we would use dial-up internet.

And it was pretty crazy. And somehow I wrangled, I made some relationships with some of the junior editors and. Being assigned after the internship was over to go cover parties and, covering the Toronto events and going out with a photographer and just, seeing things like fashion cares and feeling wow, These events look at this.

This is so cool. And I did have personal breast cancer came into my life. And I had been personally affected in our family and I wanted to get involved in the cause and I wanted to do things and I wanted to raise money and it just seemed the materials, the information, the way everything was being packaged, or I guess not even packaged, it was the opportunities that were available at that time for breast cancer, going to a breast cancer event, it was more like an afternoon tea with fashion shows with women over 60 or speeches.

Maybe the sit-down gala dinner and as a young person who had been out seeing fans and attending events and just it felt like a disconnect. And when I was actually, when I saw fashion cares, I was like, wow there's a way to get important messages out that are like bold and powerful and can be a little bit, breakthrough.

So this really started as a volunteer throwing events with young people so finding a great DJ in a cool club and because we were young and we were putting together young events, it was young people putting the events together. I think they had a more youthful, relevant to a younger audience approach and.

That was really my first foray into fundraising and we were just drifting the funds to another breast cancer organization. And then I slowly got involved. Yeah.

Eva Hartling: And let's talk about how rethink was born. And here we actually have to mention a friend that we have in common Gordon was your co-founder.

So I want to know how you got from hosting these events and fundraising for other organizations and saying, okay, I'm going to take the jump and create something because we all know it's extremely difficult to do fundraising. And I think that, especially in the\ cancer category, there's a lot of worth.

The organizations that do great work, so curious to know, what made you want to take that leap and make it all

MJ Decoteau: happen? The origin story? Yeah, it was interesting. So I had been doing fundraising for a few years for directing the funds to a breast cancer organization and You know that wasn't my volunteer work, but it just started taking over more and more of my time and energy and thought process, like just using my head space.

And I just had so many ideas that, that organization ended up recruiting me to their staff. And I worked for them for a couple of years. Now, this was not the big breast cancer charity, but they had a name that sounded like a big constitutional charity. I reached out to them and I kinda thought, oh I want to do something I can write, I can fundraise.

And they told me we don't have anyone running. Like we don't have anyone else in Toronto. I was like, what? That's confusing. Cause I, I saw the things like run for the cure. And then I learned, okay, this was, actually a small grassroots organization. Doing great things, raising funds.

Breast cancer research, mostly in London, like London, regional cancer center. They loved me. I had some good conversations and I ended up starting the Toronto chapter. And again, no experience like running things or running committees or anything like that. So that was interesting. And I did that. I just started to see an opportunity.

Again, I think since I had so many young people helping with my events, it was all my friends, like friends who were working at agencies, friends who were working in PR and marketing music biz, commercial, television production that kind of thing. And I just felt we were creating a real movement for young people and the organization itself was not as focused on that.

So there was they were excited about what I was doing, but there was just an interesting kind of thing happening with me in Toronto and young people. And I ended up feeling okay, I love this grassroots organization. I'd love to help. Not that I was a marketing person, but, I just felt got resources.

I got friends working at agencies. Like what if we did a new logo or we, anyway, I ended up writing a passionate letter. I, I had heard about. Two females running a startup agency called Zig and their names were Elsbeth Lynn and Lorraine Tao and I saw them on the cover of a report on the business magazine, by chance.

It was a really cool photograph of them. I read their story and I was like, wow, a Female creative team, putting out this great work, great television spots. I wonder if they could help. I wonder if they would love to do a spot that was focused on getting young people breast-aware.

So I wrote a passionate letter. I left a long passionate voicemail and I had actually by chance met Sarah Crawford, who was at the time the had a public affair at chum. So at the same time, Meeting with Al Smith and Laurraine. I Lorraine, I had been cultivating this relationship with chum, then telling them about my vision and wanting to get young people really engaged and young women in particular engaged in their breast health.

And anyway, long story short Zig, not me and loved me. It was hilarious because I had never done a meeting like that and coming, being an English major like you're just not used to. How to operate. So I had my team flow suit. I went in with my little black team flow suit. I pitched

Eva Hartling: them. I remember teams,

MJ Decoteau: They just wanted to listen to me and hear about my personal story and really realized that.

I had a simple idea like young people weren't aware of breast cancer because of young people. Weren't engaged young women, weren't, aware of their breast health and they loved it. They assigned, they said, we're going to do something with you. We wanna, we want to help. And they assigned a young.

Strategic planner. Alison Gordon. So she was young and just, they said, I think Alison would be the perfect person to meet with you. We were around the same age. We had both been like dropouts of academia. We both had like ideas and I remember going for a coffee with Allison and spending, we spent two or two or more hours just talking.

At the chapters that used to be at Richmond and John street and had this great meeting. It led to a really powerful PSA that was targeting young people. The response was so interesting and, in some ways, it was polarizing because it used humour to try to engage people in the cause which was new and different and groundbreaking and it stayed, but it was done with such careful thought given to casting and editing and just, really well done. And the response was so overwhelming and this was pre-social media when things didn't go viral, went the equivalent of viral back in the day, the story had legs.

We were doing interviews, a month later. That was the moment where I thought, you know what this is telling me that. There's a need for an organization. That's truly focused on young people and doing things differently and creating, taking the great information that's out there and making it relevant for a younger audience.

And I'm telling the, even though I'm rambling, I'm telling the short story if you can believe it or not. I ended up, deciding to start to rethink breast cancer. And Alison was one of the people I recruited to the board of directors. So I had Alison and some other incredible people that were really, recruited us the founding board and we were meeting and we decided let's get this organization off the ground.

And what would that look like? What would that be? And for the first year I was working off my dining room, was really pouring my energy into this organization and kind of working night and day. And it was pretty crazy because we were very entrepreneurial in our own way. We had approached the council of fashion designers in the United States to bring we were barely a minute old and I had reached out and wanted to bring this huge campaign called fashion targets, breast cancer to Canada really was what I loved about it.

Bold it wasn't pink. It was blue. It was this target. We're going to target our breast health and again, had a great phone call with them and, had worked some relationships had fashion magazine, knew the director of marketing there got her excited about it. She helped us get. Hold some board.

She was on our founding board as well. And so we had all these balls in the air. We didn't have our charitable status yet. We were recruiting, we needed our medical committee. We had all this stuff on the go. We convinced Holt Renfrew to help us launch this campaign. Everything was happening at once.

So it was a very intense year. But it went really well. And through that campaign, we had enough funds raised. I had literally been working night and day of this dining room table and a little one-bedroom apartment. My husband was like, oh my God, you're sitting there again.

It was just crazy. So in come's Alison like from our board of directors and she, everyone was super helpful, but she was kinda, my go-to like constantly on the phone, she was working full-time at SIG, really her volunteer work with rethink, I think. Taking over more and more space.

After that campaign and the success and having suddenly some funds raised we made the decision to, she, it was clear I needed someone else. Like I needed some support and I thought I don't need, an admin assistant. I don't need a donor records clerk to do that.

I need right. Someone who can really, be my copilot in this and getting this further off the ground, we're seeing opportunities. And so she made the decision to leave SIG and join me. And I swear to God, it was like this enormous weight lifted off my shoulders. Even though she had been so helpful, as a volunteer on the board, just having someone else on the team was just like huge.

So we shared an office for 13.

Eva Hartling: Oh, my God. Wow. That's when, you found the right business partner if you can work, in an enclosed space with them. It's a good match. And I'm curious it's very interesting that you targeted there, there are two things here, I think Young women.

It seemed that time, when you first launched, we think we're not as aware of the risks, of breast cancer for, our age group or younger women. It seems like, there was really a mess on, from the health community and from existing organizations that do raise awareness for breast cancer.

And at the same time, there was also a gap in the potential Tarot. For raising funds, to support breast cancer and raising awareness at the same time. And it feels like a lot of charity organizations in the health sector often target an older demographic. And obviously often it's a demographic that's going to have a little bit more, disposable funds or funds that they can put towards supporting different charities.

But, it seems there's a missed opportunity here. And it sounds like you did target them for both those reasons, but I'm curious to know what you noticed at that time and also how this reality has evolved over time.

MJ Decoteau: It's been really interesting because the reason I wanted to get involved with breast cancer, cause it's mostly women over 50 who are diagnosed with breast cancer.

So my grandmother was diagnosed when she was. The mid to late sixties. My mom was diagnosed when she was 48, which now I know that's very young at the time I was 18. But 48 and she, unfortunately, passed away when she was 54. Just before. I'm sorry. Yeah. Thank you. And it really started from that fundraising.

And awareness of education, like what are my risk factors? So I wanted to support the cause I wanted to do it in a way that was more relevant to the things I was interested in. I would pick up the breast cancer pamphlets and, cause I felt like, okay, grandmother had this mom died of it. I got to get, I should be more informed.

And I felt or pick up those pamphlets and they would have, an older woman on the cover because that was the prime audience of who's getting breast cancer. So in a way, it made sense. But I would look at them and I would just kinda eh, shove it in a drawer. Maybe it would get recycled.

It just wasn't anything that I was taking action on. And the same with the fundraising things. Angel pins, comfort hearts, pink, Teddy bears things that were very. I don't know, just not interesting to me. And I just felt like there's got to be some diversity within this movement, this breast cancer cause where not everything has to look the same or feel the same.

And then again, the information piece, like how can we take this great information and make it less scary and more relevant for young women? So it really started with an education and awareness movement for young people, giving them an opportunity to fundraise, what we did not expect to happen, which happened very quickly was young women with breast cancer reaching out to us because the vision was let's get young people, raising funds, let's donate the funds to, young, innovative researchers, help them get their careers off the ground.

And, yes, we can take. Breast cancer pamphlets and shower cards that look like, something your grandmother would want and let's take that information and make it more relevant. So that was the original idea for rethink breast cancer. What happened as I said, suddenly young women with breast cancer reaching out, and I think they saw the youthful approach and that and felt like, oh, wow, who are you?

What is this? This looks more My life, or this looks more like something I want to know about. And I felt oh wow. As the needs of a cancer patient are so complex. We're like two people at anvil then volunteers what can we do? And I felt okay, the hospitals have support programs. The hospitals have information.

We can't, we don't have the bandwidth and the resources to really tackle that. However, I've always believed in connecting and connecting with people and we would take those coffees and you start to hear the gaps in the care you hear about. It took me so long to get diagnosed. I was told I was too young for breast cancer.

Just keep an eye on it. Then I finally got diagnosed and you'd hear about the impacts on dating and sexuality and career. And I was on contract. I didn't have benefits and now I'm not being hired back. And Early menopause and fertility issues and trying to raise the young family. And the more stories we heard, the we started to see and hear similarities.

And often it was the isolation that was really brought up. So just feeling like nothing really fit in terms of what I was being offered at the hospital. I'd be given a great big bag or binder full of information, but it wasn't edited or tailored specifically for my needs of, for my needs as a young woman.

And so trying to sift through that and find what was relevant was. A lot of work and just feeling my own friends want to be supportive, but they don't really, they can't really understand what I'm going through. The other breast cancer patients. Like they do understand the treatment process, but I can get some support, they're my mom's age or my grandmother's age.

And they're not quite at the same life stage. So we just kept hearing about this and felt like that was like our first evolution. What can we do? How can we help? And some opportunities initially came about through some partnerships with other organizations, and then we suddenly found ourselves getting more and more, the more you listen to women in the community, the more there's just more and more opportunity to try to address those unmet needs.

And so we shifted our mission to include. Psychosocial support for young women with breast cancer building community. And that was our first big shift. And then as you listen, as you build that community you hear the unmet needs that just continue. It feels like they're endless sometimes.

But we, that's where we started to hear about. Some things that seem like system change opportunities. And we did evolve in and get more involved in advocacy, particularly for metastatic breast cancer. So that's something like, we launched with this fun fashion targets, breast cancer, and, let's get young women educated.

Fun cool events and, branding a cause we were on the cover of marketing magazine within a couple of years of launching. And that was fun and exciting. And then you build the community and you're hearing about the traumas and you start to build a community that's riddled with loss because breast cancer is more aggressive in young women with breast cancer.

So it's it was just. Has always been heartbreaking to meet women in the prime of their lives, who are dying of breast cancer. They have their breast cancer, they go through their treatment and then it comes back and that's an untold story. So we've really tried to raise awareness. As much as we want to be bold and positive and upbeat about the complexity of this disease, the impact on people's lives is just incredible.

And We started to really talk more about stage four needs more metastatic, really amplifying the voices of our community in that regard and creating wonderful resources and really trying to tackle advocacy issues around increasing access to treatment. So as we go through these evolutions, we always continue to support them.

Women with early breast cancer and make sure they feel seen and heard and understood. And then it becomes about the metastatic community and wanting to make sure they are seen and heard and not just lumped in or feeling invisible within the broader breast cancer space. And what we've learned is the benefit for everybody when people aren't siloed and sometimes there's a need where the metastatic community really needs to talk about.

Issues that are directly affecting metastatic patients, but we don't, we think there's a benefit for everyone in the community to understand each other's experience and understand their needs. So the old way of thinking would have been, oh we're running the support group. We've got young women with breast cancer.

We can't have anyone metastatic cause that's going to scare someone who's newly diagnosed. And we've learned how to navigate those complexities. Learning how to bring people together where possible, and really everyone benefits, it's been really amazing.

Eva Hartling: And while it has been amazing and you're celebrating 20 years, which seems unbelievable.

Here we are two decades of this important work. And I'm curious to know, you've talked about several shifts that have occurred since you, you launched, we think in the first place, what, what does the, what does your mission look like today? And I'm curious to know.

Obviously, we're coming out of 18 months, or I guess it's more at this point of our reality with a global pandemic that is COVID and that's brought to light, huge inequities in, pretty much every area of society, including. And I'm sure that is something you're keeping on your radar and trying to target.

So curious to know what, what changes are hand and how do you ensure your mission stays relevant in today's reality?

MJ Decoteau: Oh my goodness. It's been so interesting because with the pandemic and being everyone working from home, I was back on that dining room table, working long hours.

Eva Hartling: You and the rest of the world, at least this time, it wasn't just, it wasn't just because of your

MJ Decoteau: but it really brought back a start-up it brought back memories and the past year for me, I've actually led the organization through basically an organizational transformation and the pandemic really shed light on.

As you just said, health inequities. And I think that coinciding with the amplification of social justice movements and rethink wanting to continue to be relevant to the world we live in there was just an opportunity to really ramp up our focus on health equity and, really see that.

Breast cancer is a social justice issue. So we've been really focused on transforming the organization and implementing a sustainability model and just, oh my gosh, I could do three or four more sessions to talk to you about everything that's happened the last year. But you know what, the other shift is it's gone from being a, everything hip cool, doing great things, branding a cause to.

This isn't us, it started with my personal story and that's what led the starter rethink breast cancer, but it's always been the community and the women that are in our community or the men that are in our community that create the evolutions and the movements because for 20 years, we've been known as change-makers educating, empowering, advocating for people that are concerned about affected by breast cancer.

We do that by creating spaces to connect and to listen. And that those two key pieces, if that's what keeps us relevant, because if you take the time to bring people together and listen to them understand their needs and figure out, okay, how can we empower people? How can we help move the needle forward?

How can we collaborate? So it's that discovery by listening and then collaborating. That's. The best way we continue to move forward is to address the needs of the community. We try to build bridges and put the community's voice at the center of our work. And when I started to rethink it was never the MJ Decoteau breast cancer foundation.

It was not, I'm not, I'm a friendly introvert. I'm not someone I can get in front of a crowd and talk very passionately about rethink. I love being in those kinds of meetings. It's not my organization. It's the community's organization. And so that's been really important to me. And so I just love listening and meeting people and it's by bringing people together, that's the way we can drive our impact.

And that's how we're going to do it in this post COVID world, where, we've been impacted everyone, organizations financially without fundraising. And you think about opportunities to partner and, We're not so much of oh, our goal is to be best in class on everything that we do.

It's like, where can we find, we're open to collaboration and who would be the best partner? Where can we find opportunities where one plus one equals three and we're actually coming together and it's in that really great way. So we've done a more intentional shift, from being known as a marketing savvy organization to wanting to be known for driving impact and making changes to improve outcomes.

And that's really important to us and, post-black lives matter. I know you're going to be interviewing Michelle and she's a woman from our community who has helped we've collaborated with her to bring an incredible idea to light called uncovered a breast recognition project.

I'm really excited that the conversation is going to be continued. But really it's looking at breast cancer support and advocacy through lenses that are relevant today. And that, what I see in our community is post-COVID that intensity and interest in health equity interest in diversity interest in sustainability and.

Those are all going to be, I think the future of rethink breast cancer, those concepts, and how can we continue to help young people affected by breast cancer? How can we put them at the center of making a change? That's going to have an impact on everybody.

Eva Hartling: And that's a fantastic vision to have it.

I want to ask you, ask the question to, women who have roles as Changemakers and leading, organizations that are truly creating impact, whether it's, addressing health or other social justice causes. It often seems like women naturally take on this role and naturally, become the, and there are great organizations led by men as well.

But I see a lot of women who are stepping up and, wanting to make our world a better place, especially when it comes to health awareness. And I would add probably. Environment organizations as well. And I'm curious to know, and obviously, you're, you'd be in the former category, but I'm curious to know if there are aspects of, when you think of leadership abilities, for example, What are things that you think you can bring to this work as a leader in your role, that stem from the fact that you are a woman.

And obviously, in this case, there is a direct link between being a woman and your experience with women in your family. Haven't been diagnosed and unfortunately even passed away because of breast cancer, but coming back to leadership abilities. Why do you think that puts you in the right.

Sorry, there was an, I packed a lot in that question.

MJ Decoteau: I was listening. I, yeah, I relate to it. I think it's a couple of things. I think you're, I'm a woman, so I've been raised in a patriarchal society. You're aware of times where you felt either invisible in a room, just because

that's the way our world has worked for women, and so you bring that experience. You I think you've internalized those things and you hold them in your head and or in your distant, your psyche. And then as a woman, I just feel and I don't know if this is like described, I'm a friendly introvert, but I am more of, I'd like to listen.

I like to meet people. I and I think the two of knowing what, women have endured from an equity perspective grown, having been raised that way and listening and connecting and figuring out like, wow, Change happens when you come together. And when you have many voices pushing and asking for the same thing, I've seen that work so well where it's like, everyone brings their own perspective and where can you find the common threads and how can you bring them all together and, analyze the opportunity and really unite.

As I said, many voices too, to ask for the same thing. And I see that I think women have a great ability to find those we're all about connecting.

I don't know. I don't like to paint a big brush because everyone's different, but yeah, I think

Eva Hartling: there are some shared patterns here

MJ Decoteau: you\ connect and listen.

And then if we can merge that. Smart strategic advocacy opportunities. I think that's how the change is going to come about. But it's always about listening for me, listening and then trying to identify what are the ways we can work together.

Eva Hartling: Yeah, and I think that's been the strained and the special sauce for rethink is you identified as a community that wasn't being serviced and then you built it.

And it obviously resonated with this target audience and you've been going strong for 20 years, which is really impressive. So I want to talk about some of the things that you are doing to highlight your two decades. So you've mentioned uncovered and we will be speaking with Michelle as well.

I think you have a pop-up coming up as well. And then there is a turning the page on cancer taking place, as we speak to.

MJ Decoteau: Yeah, those are just a smattering of some of our things that are going on this October. So the pop-up at stacked is our first time. We've actually used stock the last couple of years to do a media preview of all of the companies that come together and support rethink through, donating a percentage of their products.

And this is

Eva Hartling: actually I'll just pause for our listeners who are not in Toronto, who may not know what stacked is. So obviously in an Outdoor Space that allows for various pop-ups and events to take place and a great, community where it's possible to put events together and bring in multiple partners and make it a really enjoyable experience for visitors basically.

But it is a physical space in Toronto

MJ Decoteau: and it's made out of shipping containers. Yes. Strange but fun. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. It's great. Because brands can test having a shop like they can do a pop-up. That's what their whole approaches. And so we've decided we've done a popup in the past for just one day.

So this year we're deciding let's go for it. Let's do, let's take out basically a pop-up space for an entire month and for breast cancer awareness month and, actually run a little store with all our products, which are also available through. Nationwide online, but this is an opportunity where people want to come.

If they want to come, they can look at things in person and chat with us that we are going to be doing some programming yoga in hopefully in the outdoor space. That's just being finalized, but we are flipping halfway through the month, flipping the space into. An exhibit of our uncovered resource is the resource for black women with breast cancer and actually black indigenous and people of colour this year we've expanded it.

So that's happening and then we've got. Through the pandemic, we have ramped up. We were a digital-first organization. I think starting in 20 15, 20 16. So the adjustment to being at home and being online, wasn't as huge for us as some other organizations, because for us to be relevant to young women, we had to go digital because that's where we were finding them on their phones.

Yeah.

Eva Hartling: It's really fun that you're bringing an event back in person, and that must feel really good afternoon, period. Hermit period that we've been forced

MJ Decoteau: to live in. It really does that. That's so true. Yeah, so we'll have some stuff happening in person at stacked, which is super fun.

And then we will have our, we call it the rethink real talks. We're doing that with one of our oncologists she's on our board actually. Talking about all the new treatments for breast cancer, we're going to be having one specifically focused. It's actually in partnership with an organization, a black-led organization called for the breast of us.

And so that's happening this month. We've got turning the page on cancer. So I'd love to talk about that for a second. That is a community event it's led by one of ours. Metastatic breast cancer advocates. She's a woman, her name's and she's on our metastatic advisory board and she's just an incredible person.

And she teamed up last year with another young metastatic patient named Samantha and it's called turning the page on cancer. It's basically a readathon with all kinds of fun things going on, anyone can join and you just, read as much as you can, as little as you can collect funds and everything goes to rethinks metastatic breast cancer.

Fund. So specifically for programming and supports and research for women with stage four incurable, breast cancer. And so this has been a great event last year, they raised $30,000 for rethink and sadly, Samantha passed away this past summer. So terrible. I was just at the kickoff for the event yesterday.

Carlton Place, just outside of Ottawa. I just wanted to be there. They were kicking it off with a little free little shared library in Samantha's honour. And her husband, her mom, her sister, just, they were there and business, once again, throwing her energy behind raising these funds and it was.

On a weekend where it was national women's or national daughters day and international daughters day on the same, over the weekend. And I just thought like my goodness. I want people to know that it's not just moms and grandmas, it's daughters that are being taken. So there's more work to be done.

And I just, I'm excited about this event. Everything's throwing a little bit more energy behind amplifying it this year. So I'm really hoping people can check it out. It's called turning the page on cancer and they have their own Instagram channel. Rethink sharing at a time on our own channels.

Eva Hartling: That sounds amazing. And what are, what's ahead for you and asking for rethink, but also from me from a more personal standpoint, what's something that you're looking forward to implementing or, work on or put out into the world in the next coming

MJ Decoteau: year. Yeah, I think How we evolve, we'll continue to serve and support our young women with early breast cancer and our metastatic community.

And we are really excited about showing that we're open to partnerships with other community organizations in particular for addressing those health equity issues diversity. And so we have been starting to form relationships with some leadership. Women's college hospital and, partnering with Michelle.

We've expanded uncovered this year. And I think there's going to continue to be opportunities to grow that. And we're really excited about what the year's going to look like. I think it's going to. Be fun for us. We're actually launching a new logo and a little bit of a new look and that's happening in the month too.

And it's all speaking to this future of our sustainability model and just wanting to be change-makers, but with new thoughts towards sustainability in mind. So that's what's keeping me excited. It's been quite a year. Navigating the pandemic and navigating this shift in our organization.

It's what keeps it interesting for me. It's I think that's why I'm here. 20 years later, we've gone through these evolutions from awareness to, supporting patient needs to then collaborate with our community. So our advocacy for the metastatic community and every few years, the digital revolution was in there too every few years.

It seems there's a new way that we have to continue to be relevant. The mission stays the same, but because the world changes so much, we need to change. And that's what I love about what I do.

Eva Hartling: And you continue evolving what your community basically, which must be really inspiring and great fuel for where you're going

MJ Decoteau: next.

Absolutely. We're all about being led by the needs of the community and responding and that's our job.

Eva Hartling: And I want to ask you my favourite question to ask everyone on the show. And that is what do you wish women would do less of?

MJ Decoteau: Ooh, let's see. I think I don't know. I'm like.

I wasn't prepared for this question.

Eva Hartling: I like to put people on the spot would with that one and see, what, what really comes up before they've thought about it for too long. But you can think about it for a little

MJ Decoteau: bit. I just, there are too many things that we could do less of, but

Eva Hartling: it can be more than one. You can give me a

MJ Decoteau: few answers.

It's okay. I always think of what we could do more or do less of, self-criticism holding yourself back. I don't know if I've got a 17-year-old, so I'm thinking of her and what I see in her and what I, don't be so hard on yourself. That's, she's got that, perfectionism.

The issue that she grapples with. And it's like now at my age, it's none of that matters. Easily easier said than done though, to not be so hard on yourself. Don't get in your own way. I'm a classic over-thinker I don't know if that's common with women, but I have my insurance I'm equal parts.

I said this, I have this advanced. Cool parts over-thinker and plunger enter. That can create a real mess within an organization, I plunge in and then I overthink it. Anyways. That's not really talking about what women shouldn't do.

Eva Hartling: I think sharing that right, can be the word of caution to your 17-year-old daughter, for example, because now you've learned from these mistakes.

I think if we can help avoid some mistakes for the next generation, that's, that's the good kind of support.

MJ Decoteau: Absolutely. Yep. Get outside. That's my other, I feel like women have been doing double duty, a lot of women. I know so many young women that have been working full time from home with small children and yeah.

It's. Yeah, I could go on and on because,

Eva Hartling: That was a great list. And, we started the interview by talking about what you the little MJ was dreaming of doing later in life. And what do you think she'd have to say if you know that the younger you was looking at you and all the amazing work you've done and, the, what you've built for the past two decades at rethink what do you think.

I

MJ Decoteau: think she would say you are going to meet incredible people. You're going to meet super smart, creative people that want to help get on board with something that's addressing an urgent need. You're going to meet incredible people in the community that, that you'll get to work with. And you're going to learn so much and you're going to keep learning and learning.

Just get started. That's the advice. I often give people now, like I'd take coffees with people who want to start non-profits and I say just get started. Like you have to be able to just start and you'll make mistakes and you'll be able to adjust and figure it out. But if you're always waiting for the moment to unveil your idea a year, you're not giving an opportunity for the community to respond and help shape and evolve it, which is basically.

The message here is that's been the key to Rethink's success is collaborating and its fluid. It's dynamic. This is a movement. It's not it, that's how I see our model. It's an organization that's changing and evolving. Always. We're always all about going forward forever forward is our mantra for the month.

So you'll be seeing that message on our Instagram as well.

Eva Hartling: That's a good one. Thank you so much, MJ, wishing you great success with all of the activities this month, and also, celebrating your 20 years. I looking forward to more conversations with you and your team, and we'll link up, all of your social media and websites.

So people know where to find you and get involved if they're interested. And I really appreciate you speaking with me.

MJ Decoteau: I appreciate having a long-form interview. This has been an absolute pleasure. I've loved talking to you. Thank you. Thank you so much.

Eva Hartling: I really hope you enjoy today's conversation.

And if you did, as always, don't forget to subscribe, rate, and give us a review wherever that is possible. Thank you to TD bank group women entrepreneurs, further support of The Brand is Female. You've got it in you to succeed. Let TD help guide you. Visit The Brand is Female dot com slash podcast and click on the TD logo.

Thank you for listening. I'll be back in a week with a new guest. Thank you so much for listening to a podcast by The Brand is Female I'm Eva Hartling. And this episode was produced by our team sound engineering by Isabel Morris, research and production support, Claire Miglionico marketing and digital growth, Kayla, Gillis and partnerships, Natalie hope.