When I first learned that the Susan G. Komen foundation would no longer be funding breast cancer-related health services offered by Planned Parenthood, my initial feeling was one of excitement not because I supported the decision (not in any way imaginable), but because I foresaw the incredible backlash that would certainly occur. It was time for the impregnable "not-for-profit" Komen juggernaut to face the public scrutiny it has long deserved.
I assumed correctly that rational, reasonable people the sort who understand the distinction between nonpartisan funding of medical research and thinly-veiled political strategy would get one whiff of Komen's defunding plan and apply any resulting displeasure toward spreading the word and demanding change.
It was about time. Thanks to savvy branding and a seemingly endless supply of high-profile corporate partnerships, Susan G. Komen for the Cure has become one of the most successful and trusted names in the non-profit game. But what most of the organization's well-meaning patrons and supporters didn't realize before Komen's boneheaded decision-making was that the Komen foundation, as well as its ubiquitous pink-ribbon branding campaign, has less to do with finding a cure for breast cancer and more to do with promoting a commercial culture sanctified by the virtue of charitable giving.
I first learned that something was rotten in the state of Komen after The New York Times published a lengthy review of its fundraising and financing efforts last fall. It was a time when seemingly every shred of movable merchandise came emblazoned with a pink curlicue ribbon in order to commemorate Breast Cancer Awareness Month and to promote donations to the Komen foundation in the form of item purchases.
The Times article alluded to a brewing controversy regarding the commercialization of a serious human illness, the focus being on promoting awareness and prevention rather than on funding actual medical research. It also criticized the siphoning of attention and resources away from other causes and the oversimplification of important medical information with the groundwork for a conservative political agenda thrown in for good measure.
A little digging on the Internet brought the story into better focus. It seemed unlikely that the organization's refusal to fund breast cancer-related embryonic stem cell research was simply coincidental to its administration's strong ties to conservative policymakers. It seemed unreasonable that these administrators regularly received six-figure salaries, with some pocketing nearly $500,000 per year. Other funds were consistently being funneled into legal battles with smaller non-profits infringing on Komen's trademarked and broadly applicable "For the Cure" tagline. Some might consider Komen's shareholdings in medical technology and pharmaceutical companies to represent a different brand of charitable investment, though a considerable conflict of interest surely comes into play here as Komen divvies out stipends.
The most recent Planned Parenthood debacle unearthed a few more alarming points. The Komen foundation's initial decision to stop providing funds to Planned Parenthood came on the heels of the formation of a joint global health initiative with the George W. Bush Institute and a new administrative hire: failed Republican Georgia gubernatorial candidate and outspoken anti-abortion conservative Karen Handel. A close study of Komen's publicly available financial documentation reveals what many had already suspected that for an organization supposedly intent on finding "the cure" for breast cancer (to the point of pressing charges against any perceived obstructor), only about one-tenth of total revenues are actually invested in cure-directed research. Because only a marginal portion of corporate affiliate sales are donated to the Komen foundation from the start, just pennies on the dollar for every purchase of pink-ribbon paraphernalia even go toward breast cancer research and prevention, with just a fraction of it going toward any sort of search for a cure.
In the Times article, Komen founder and CEO Nancy Brinker described her organization's commercially-focused fundraising initiative as "democratization of a disease." I can only feel grateful for the greater democratizing force of the Internet for facilitating the spread of Komen's decision to defund Planned Parenthood, for allowing the public to discover the true face of the Komen foundation and for helping many people, including myself, find a different charity to which we may now direct our support.
