Buncee

What is Buncee?

So, you ask… what inspired us to Buncee?

The Buncee idea “bounced around for a bit” you could say in a number of ways over the years, but finally began to crystallize following a medical conference hosted by our family’s Foundation, the Daniella Maria Arturi Foundation.

The Foundation…

The Foundation honors the short, beautiful life of our daughter, Daniella, whom we tragically lost to treatment complications from the bone marrow failure disorder, Diamond Blackfan Anemia (or DBA as it is commonly referred to), where one’s bone marrow does not make enough red blood cells, which are necessary to carry oxygen throughout your body. After we lost Daniella, we were determined to try to improve the lives of other children and families suffering with DBA and established the Foundation to fund efforts to advance DBA medical research and patient care initiatives through direct grants and by hosting meetings and conferences that aim to advance the state of DBA science by building collaborations and partnerships among our world of scientists, clinicians, and health officials from both the public and private sectors.

How the Foundation inspired Buncee…

As you can imagine, as our Foundation’s efforts and the remarkable community of people involved have grown, we have had an equally growing struggle to communicate in effective and appropriate ways to fit each situation and group of people. There are the countless thank you letters we write, wrap-ups to share, updates to provide, ideas to propose, strategies to create and progress to translate throughout the year to a broad group of people working and following DBA related topics at varying levels.

The standard email format always seemed so impersonal, limiting and, well, quite simply, boring! I missed the charm of handwritten notes, but it lacked the technical capabilities that I had grown dependent on such as “attaching a file”, sharing a link to an article or posting an update to a discovery pertinent to the conversation. We needed a way to stay connected to our friends, colleagues, business associates and family that was technically savvy enough to allow us to communicate using all forms of media in situational appropriate ways, but that also kept it engaging and personal…we needed a way to “share the full story”.

It was following our last DBA Medical Conference that the “aha moment” occurred. I had received some hand written notes from a few of our colleagues, which put a fine point on my need to come up with a way to be equally personal while also effectively communicating progress in our field and I started to see a way that we could pull all forms of media together into one easy, multi-user, multi-format communication platform.

It just so happens that this need for a new way to stay connected was also converging with another overriding need growing within our Foundation – the need for new ways to fund our expanding Foundation efforts. I’ve found that what you never know when you start these efforts is just how long the journey will be, how much money it will take, and…. how you’ll remain prepared when your goals actually start to hit!  Remarkable scientific advancements are unfolding in the DBA scientific world, which has included being identified as the first human disease linked to a molecular problem never before seen in a human disease. That novel finding has stimulated research in areas we could have never predicted, including links to a tumor suppressor gene, which is a gene they hope may be able to help prevent certain types of cancer. You certainly never anticipate that some of the world’s most renowned scientists would be involved in a rare disease like DBA or that the far reaching implications might not only include a cure for DBA, but also yield clues to additional disease groups that could impact millions of lives.

The conundrum is what to do with an endeavor like this that is on the path to succeeding beyond your dreams, but that naturally carries the financial demands to match. Well… I’m just crazy enough to think that these two efforts, which on their surface may seem like unlikely matches, can indeed help each other! And, that is how the Daniella Foundation fits in to the Buncee mission! It is our hope that if Buncee is very successful, this idea, which was born through a Foundation need to stay connected in a more dynamic way, will help millions struggling with the same communication needs while coming full circle to also help us generate funding to find a cure for Diamond Blackfan Anemia. It may be an audacious goal – but hey ….you only go this way once.

Buncee in a nutshell…

It’s not social networking… but perhaps it’s social communicating. Whether for business or for fun, Buncee gives you the opportunity to send the message you need to… tell “the full story”… in a personal, multi-faceted way, that allows everyone in your circle to immerse themselves in your experience.

So settle in, relax….think about that person, that event, that place, that new business strategy or proposal, or simply that emotion you are trying to convey. Use this marvelously modern, multi-media form of communicating and let your personality and creativity shine through to share a bit of yourself.  But please, while you delve in, remain mindful and respectful of your content – in other words, “share in a way that you’d like to be shared”. It would break our Buncee hearts if this platform is used to hurt others.

Make learning and creating fun.

Thank you,

Marie Arturi
CEO Buncee LLC