The Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation announced yesterday that its president was resigning and its founder/Chief Executive was stepping down to take on a different role.
It's too bad that things had to go this way, but maybe it's also for the best. Maybe some new leadership will give them a chance to rethink the way they do things.
The resignations were, of course, prompted by the backlash from Komen's decision last January to stop any funding for Planned Parenthood. The funding (which was ultimately restored) had helped Planned Parenthood provide mammograms, especially in rural areas, to many women. The negative reaction was very large, and very public. Several Komen executives resigned soon after, and yesterday's announcement seems like the closing chapter of this controversy.
It's not the only controversy that Komen has been involved in. The organization has been very aggressive in its breast cancer awareness campaign, partnering with some corporations that make products that do not promote the healthy lifestyles that medical experts encourage. Many people do not like their corporatization of breast cancer, where pennies are donated from increased sales of products adorned with a pink ribbon. (The documentary Pink Ribbons, Inc. tackles some of these issues.)
It's hard to deny the good that Komen has done; they've raised over $2 billion for breast cancer research and awareness. I'm as sick of the pink bread wrappers every fall as the next non-breast-cancer patient is, and a little jealous that lymphoma doesn't have the same PR, but $2 billion is a lot of money.
But I think what ultimately bothers me about the Komen controversy is their lack of honesty. In the end, it really did seem to be a political decision, targeting Planed Parenthood by changing its rules specifically to provide an excuse to cut off funding.
The issue, for me, isn't which specific organization Komen targeted. It could have been the Dick Cheney Breast Cancer Center. It doesn't matter. What does matter is that they hid that agenda.
People need to know what they are donating money to, so they can make an informed decision. If a donation has political implications, or has strings attached, so be it -- a fundraising organization is free to focus on whatever cause(s) they want to. And if I don't like it, I can donate somewhere else, to an organization that meets my political requirements (or, even better, stays neutral, and focuses only on cancer research). But saying you're neutral, and then getting caught having an agenda? Not cool.
So my hope is that Komen ends up with new leadership, and finds a way to focus on their core mission. My guess is that these resignations come eight months after the controversy because fundraising is way, way down. Maybe they'll emerge from this a leaner, more focused organization, like a business that has shed some under-performing subsidiaries.
I hope so. We, the cancer community, need the research. But not the negative PR.
I agree with you about the good that Komen has done, and the hope that they refocus and find a new and better way to raise money that is desperately needed. The trouble may be that, because their focus is on something that primarily (but not exclusively) affects women, and they (like any other non-profit) have to go where the money is, they'll find themselves again navigating the minefield: how do we get money from corporations? (the "pink" problem of reducing things to the least-offensive denominator, which in this case is "make things VERY gender-conventional" and risk trivializing them) and, how do we get money from rich people? (the problem of convincing fiscally conservative and often very socially conservative people to give money to help address a disease that more often than not resides in the bodies of people whose behavior, especially their sexual behavior, needs to be controlled). While they might have cleared out the people who caused the immediate problem, this set of continuing problems will persist. I regretted that they got slapped down so hard--as you mention, they made a not-insignificant contribution to researching cancer. But I did not regret at all that the message got delivered: you can't attack another non-profit that provides a broad range of health care services to poor and rural women so that you can appease one subset of your funders. Behind the curtain, Komen was just as political as PP, only in a rightward direction, apparently, and you're right: they ought to be open about it.
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