Successful VideoFizz campaign supports breast cancer awareness, research

One Kansas City startup is recognizing breast cancer awareness month through a promotion to support the American Breast Cancer Foundation.

Laura Steward

This October, VideoFizz is encouraging users to create a video on their platform to let someone special know you are “pinking” of them, raising awareness and support for the foundation. Whether it’s celebrating survival, uplifting a patient or honoring a family member, the video is free to make and encourages donations to the foundation.

Available on iOS and Android devices, VideoFizz is an app that enables collaboration to make personalized video messages for celebrations or special occasions. It allows users to edit a video, add animation and background music and then share it with friends.

Donations are optional for the October campaign, but for those who give, a breast cancer awareness ribbon and an “I donated” watermark will appear on the bottom of the video.

The campaign already has scored success, VideoFizz founder Laura Steward said. In addition to a half dozen TV appearances around the nation, the app was downloaded more than 2,000 times over the weekend of Oct. 14 alone.

Steward said the cause hits close to home. Inspired by the success of a “cancer sucks” video she made for a friend, it occurred to her that she should try to uplift more patients with her video app. She also worked in oncology and genomic sequencing for 17 years.

“It’s been really exciting to have the opportunity to learn more about our platform while at the same time helping out another organization,” Steward said. “I think it’ll be interesting to do more philanthropic work and that we’ll have more opportunities to do so in the future. … Cancer is a cause I am very passionate about.”

Sporting Kansas City has asked fans to submit “pinking of you” videos. Along with videos of the athletes, select fan-submitted videos will be shown at halftime during Sunday’s game against the San Jose Earthquakes.

Video Fizz was among 10 startups to win a $50,000 LaunchKC grant during the 2015 Techweek Kansas City. The company has raised more than $1.2 million in capital. Check out the video below to learn how VideoFizz works.