The hospital treats the child.
We're building what treats the family.
Yes We Cancer is a nonprofit project dedicated to building the support system that pediatric cancer families need and don't have. Our current work — The Cancer Iceberg podcast and Family Toolbox — is the first coordinated effort to address the financial, emotional, and relational crisis that follows a diagnosis home.
The challenge
The survival rates are getting better. The family support isn't.
Pediatric cancer treatment has gotten remarkably good. For some childhood cancers, survival rates are above 80%. The medical system knows how to treat the child.
It does not know how to treat the family.
When a child is diagnosed, the crisis doesn't stay in the hospital. It follows the family home. The financial spiral starts immediately — missed income, medical bills, travel costs, and expenses that compound every week. Marriages buckle under pressure they were never designed for. Siblings learn that their needs come second, and some never unlearn it. Mental health emergencies don't announce themselves until months or years later, and by then the support window has closed.
The help that exists is scattered across dozens of disconnected organizations, most of which address isolated problems — a grant here, a support group there — without connecting them. There is no coordinated system that treats the family as a whole unit in crisis. Hospital social workers are overloaded and limited in scope. The nonprofit resources that exist were not designed around how families actually experience a diagnosis.
Parents spend what little capacity they have left hunting for answers. Most of them are Googling at midnight because nobody handed them a guide for any of this.
WHAT WE’RE BUILDING
The Cancer Iceberg
The Cancer Iceberg is a podcast and a growing family resource system. Every episode brings in a professional — family therapists, financial counselors, social workers, researchers — to work through a specific problem that cancer families face and that nobody is addressing head-on.
Each conversation is built on months of interviews and research. Each one produces resources that go into a growing Family Toolbox — searchable, practical, and designed for people in crisis who don't have time to dig.
The podcast is the engine. The toolbox is the output.
Season 1: Family Dynamics
What happens at home when cancer moves in. Marriage under pressure, siblings, single parenting, co-parenting.
Season 2: Mental Health
The fear, the hypervigilance, the guilt, the exhaustion that doesn't lift. Caregiver burnout, PTSD, coping strategies, grief.
Season 3: Finances & Future
Bills don't pause for cancer. Trauma-informed finances, hidden costs, navigating debt.
FUND THE WORK
100% of donations fund the work. Here's what that means.
Every interview, every expert consultation, every resource in the Family Toolbox exists because someone decided to fund it. Individual donors, subscribers, and organizational partners are the engine behind everything we produce.
Your donation pays for:
Research
Months of interviews with families, clinicians, social workers, therapists, and researchers before a single episode is recorded. This is what makes the work different from a conversation — every episode is built on deep investigation.
Expert consultations
We bring in family therapists, financial counselors, social workers, and systems researchers. Their time and expertise cost money.
Production
Recording, editing, publishing the podcast. Building and maintaining the Family Toolbox. Producing the monthly briefs and deep-dive resources for Patreon supporters.
Growth
Every dollar beyond production goes toward expanding the Toolbox, reaching more families, and taking on new topics. The goal is a comprehensive, family-centered resource system that doesn't exist yet. We're building it one episode, one resource, one investigation at a time.
This is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Your donation is tax-deductible.
Donate
A one-time or recurring gift to Yes We Cancer funds the research, expert consultations, and production behind everything we build. Any amount. All tax-deductible.
Subscribe on Patreon
A monthly subscription gets you into the work — the Family Toolbox, early episodes, monthly briefs, and for Lead Circle members, a seat at the table with our team. 100% of subscriptions fund the research.
Partner with Us
If you're an organization that wants to underwrite a season of research or fund the expansion of the Family Toolbox, we'd like to talk.
WHY WE STARTED THIS
We couldn't find anyone working on this problem as a whole.
UX for Good founder Jason Ulaszek (on the right) is a leading user experience designer and will head up the design team. Jason is also the father of a pediatric cancer patient.
Plenty of organizations address pieces of the family cancer experience. Financial assistance programs. Support groups. Counseling referrals. But nobody was looking at the whole picture — the way financial strain compounds marital strain, which compounds the mental health crisis, which compounds the damage to siblings, and how none of that shows up in the medical chart.
We looked for someone working at that altitude. We couldn't find them. So we started.
SUPPORTERS
These organizations and individuals helped us build the foundation.
We’re so thankful for their partnership and support.
Studio space: Highland Management Associates Commercial broker: Lee Dickson Studio design: Jan Johnson & Yong In Studio setup: JHR Electric & McCormack Painting Studio furniture: Rework, Designs for Dignity, BOS & Affordable Office Interiors, Office Furniture Resources, Allsteel Brand and graphic design: Dan Leu Content and copy: Julia Ruskin