When a service helps one person but remains out of reach for another, the problem is no longer simply whether it works. The harder question is who gets access to it and what it would take to change that.
For Sue Weldon, founder and CEO of Unite for HER, that question emerged from a conversation she has never forgotten. After undergoing treatment for breast cancer, she met a woman who was also living with the disease. Sue began sharing the supportive therapies and resources that had helped her manage the physical and emotional toll of treatment. The woman listened and replied, “Good for you. I could never afford that.”
Sue had spent an estimated $4,000 to $6,000 of her own money on additional support. Until that moment, she had not fully considered how much her recovery experience depended on resources other women might not have. She went home thinking about what access could look like for someone without the same financial cushion or community.
That encounter became the starting point for Unite for HER, a nonprofit that began by serving 23 women and now, according to Sue, supports approximately 11,000 people a year. In her conversation with hosts Aggie and Cristy on the Badass Women in Business Podcast, Sue explains how she built the organization and why growing a mission requires much more than conviction.
The difference between treating a disease and supporting a person
Sue was 39 when she received her breast cancer diagnosis, just weeks after losing her mother. She was raising three young children and trying to keep up with work and family life. Her treatment included a bilateral mastectomy and six months of chemotherapy. Although she felt she had received excellent medical care, she was unprepared for how much of her daily life would be affected.
The challenges she describes were not limited to what happened in the treatment room. Sleep, bone pain, mood, body image, intimacy and medically induced menopause all became part of her experience. Sue says some of these subjects received little attention at the time, leaving her to search for information and support herself.
She explored acupuncture, gentle yoga, nutrition and other supportive approaches alongside her oncology care. She describes acupuncture as especially meaningful in helping her manage symptoms. Those experiences are her personal account, not a claim that complementary therapies treat cancer or work identically for everyone. What changed for Sue was the feeling that she could participate more actively in managing the difficult parts of her care.
But being able to find and pay for support is different from knowing that it exists. That distinction became the heart of her business model. Unite for HER works to connect eligible patients with education, vetted supportive services and a community that can help them navigate treatment and recovery. Sue describes a program that offers approximately $2,000 in supportive services to each participating member, while continuing to emphasize that such care belongs alongside, not in place of, conventional cancer treatment.
For founders, the lesson is larger than healthcare. A product or service can be valuable and still fail the people who need it. Solving the underlying access problem often requires rethinking price, delivery, partnerships and who carries the cost.
She built the first version with the skills she already had
Sue did not begin as a nonprofit executive with a national operating plan. She had been a high level gymnastics coach and worked in sales. Those experiences gave her relationships, an understanding of events and a practical ability to bring people together. She decided to start there.
Her gymnastics community provided the first volunteers and supporters. Parents of athletes brought expertise in communications, design, sponsorship and fundraising. Four people initially worked without pay. In 2009, the first Pink Invitational brought together about 800 gymnasts and raised $65,000 for the cause.
What began as a fundraiser grew into an important source of financial support and community involvement. Sue says the event now attracts thousands of gymnasts and hundreds of volunteers, with some families remaining involved long after their children stopped competing. That continuity is not incidental. People were not simply asked to donate; they were given ways to contribute skills, time and a sense of ownership.
She also resisted a common founder habit: trying to become an expert in every part of the organization. Sue knew how to coach people and build relationships, but she sought out individuals with deeper experience in areas she did not know. She asked for advice, learned from mentors and gradually hired leaders who could take responsibility for entire functions.
That choice helped her move from personally organizing work to creating an organization others could run. It is a particularly relevant distinction for founders who have built their businesses around their own standards and constant availability. In the early years, being involved in everything may be necessary. Later, that same instinct can prevent capable people from doing their best work.
The pandemic forced a different answer to scale
By 2020, Unite for HER was serving roughly 1,700 people, primarily in the Philadelphia region. The organization relied heavily on personal gatherings, in person orientations and hands on services. Then the pandemic shut down those interactions while hundreds of women were waiting to enter its programs.
Sue did not initially believe a screen could deliver the connection that was central to the nonprofit's work. Her team had to test that assumption quickly. They moved education, counseling and some wellness services online, held virtual events and began mailing carefully assembled care boxes to patients who could no longer receive them in person.
The results challenged Sue's expectations. Virtual sessions made it possible to reach people beyond the original geographic area. She noticed that some members felt more comfortable discussing private matters, including sexual health, from their own homes. Meanwhile, services requiring direct physical contact remained local. Rather than treating everything as either virtual or in person, the organization began using each format where it made sense.
This was more than a technology upgrade. It was a change in how Unite for HER understood its own value. The core promise was not a particular event, building or delivery method. It was that a person facing cancer would receive thoughtful, accessible support and feel less alone.
For any business that grew around an intimate, personal experience, that is the real scaling question. Which parts of the service make people feel seen, and which parts are simply habits that developed when the company was smaller? Sue's team learned that preserving the first does not always require preserving the second.
The cost of demand that grows faster than capacity
Serving more people did not eliminate the organization's hardest problem. It made that problem more urgent.
Sue talks candidly about the pressure of raising enough money each year to fund the services members receive. The nonprofit does not have a large endowment to draw on. Its team must secure funding again and again through fundraising events, donations, sponsors and partnerships. Sue recalls one period when demand rose well beyond the number of people the organization had budgeted to serve. A waiting list was evidence that the service was needed, but it was also evidence that resources were not keeping pace.
Growth therefore carries a responsibility that is easy to overlook in a success story. A promise to serve thousands has to be backed by staffing, systems, dependable funding and service quality. Sue has worked to diversify revenue sources so that the organization's future is not tied to a single fundraiser. She also argues that nonprofit employees deserve competitive compensation and a reasonable workload. Passion for a cause is not a substitute for a sustainable workplace.
There is another leadership choice embedded in her approach. Sue says she no longer knows every operational detail, and that is intentional. She wants strong leaders to make decisions and feel that Unite for HER belongs to them, too. She thinks about succession because the organization must be able to continue long after she steps away.
That is an uncomfortable but necessary test for any founder. Does the organization become stronger as more people take responsibility, or does growth simply give the founder more things to control? Sue has worked toward the first outcome, even when it means letting other people own work she once handled personally.
Building something that should not always need to exist
Sue's longer term ambition contains a tension of its own. She wants Unite for HER to keep reaching more people, but she also wants comprehensive supportive care to become a more accessible part of the healthcare system. Ideally, fewer patients would have to depend on a nonprofit to receive help with the physical and emotional consequences of cancer treatment.
She waited more than two decades after her diagnosis to write Heal Empower Restore, drawing on her own journals, the experiences of people served by the nonprofit and contributions from professionals who have worked alongside it. The book reflects how much her understanding changed as she moved from being a patient trying to get through treatment to a founder responsible for delivering support to thousands.
What makes Sue's story compelling is not simply that a painful experience led to a meaningful organization. It is the discipline required to turn an individual insight into a service model, a team, a funding strategy and a plan for continuity. Her original question about access is still the one shaping her decisions.
And when she speaks directly to someone who has just been diagnosed, the message is less about ambition than permission: support exists, and people do not have to shoulder everything alone. For the women leading companies and organizations who hear her story, there is a parallel challenge. Building something that matters also means allowing other people to help carry it.
About Sue Weldon
Sue Weldon is the founder and CEO of Unite for HER, the national nonprofit she established in 2009 after her own breast cancer diagnosis at age 39. A 22-year survivor, author, speaker and health advocate, she has grown the organization from a program serving 23 women into nationwide support for people affected by breast and ovarian cancers. She is the author of Heal Empower Restore, a guide created with the organization’s medical and wellness experts, and has announced the forthcoming Unite for HER Cookbook.
Connect with Sue on LinkedIn. Follow Unite for HER on Instagram (@unite4her), Facebook, TikTok (@uniteforher) and X (@UniteforHER).
Listen, connect and support
Follow the Badass Women in Business Podcast to hear Sue’s conversation and more discussions about leadership, ownership and building organizations with lasting impact.
Learn more about Unite for HER, explore its free wellness programs, or apply for support if you or someone you know could benefit.
Explore Sue’s book, Heal Empower Restore, and consider supporting Unite for HER’s mission with a donation.
