What do you think of when you see a pink ribbon? If you answered “breast cancer research” you may be in for a nasty shock.
The ubiquitous symbol of the cancer awareness movement represents more than just awareness and support of those who suffer from or are liable to suffer from the disease. The pink ribbon image and the term “for the Cure” are both owned by the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation, a for-profit charity whose spending choices may make you think twice about wearing pink next October.
According to a Reuters article titled “Insight: Komen charity under microscope for funding, science” the charity spent only 15% of the $420 million in donations it received on actually funding research in 2011. That’s about $63 million. The majority of donations, about 43% in 2011, go toward “education,” a nebulous term that presumably includes sponsorships, advertisements, and the propagation of their pink ribbon logo.
In contrast, the Breast Cancer Research Foundation reported spending 92% of its revenue directly on research.
The money isn’t the only questionable thing about the Komen charity. In recent years, the charity has come under fire for its harsh enforcement of its trademarks for the term “for the Cure” and for its pink ribbon logo.
Komen has issued a large number of cease-and-desist orders to various charities that use the “for the Cure” term in their name, and are notoriously lawsuit-happy when any company uses their pink ribbon logo without permission, according to a Wall Street Journal article. Legal fees for sending out these letters and taking these charities to court are all funded by donation money.
In recent lawsuits, they have even gone so far as to forbid other charities from using the color pink in conjunction with cancer research. According to Komen’s general legal counsel, Jonathan Blum, said to the Wall Street Journal that the charity has a legal duty to protect its trademarks, adding that the charity sees its funding of lawsuits as “responsible stewardship of our donor’s funds.”
At this point, it seems to me that everyone is aware of breast cancer. I don’t see why a multimillion-dollar charity needs to spend such a large percentage of its funds on advertisement and awareness, and I think it’s highly inappropriate that they use a portion of the money that they’re given to sue other charities. I’m surprised at this point that there isn’t an equally big charity to benefit prostate cancer research; not only is prostate cancer more common than breast cancer, but men are statistically more likely to get prostate cancer than women are likely to get breast cancer according to Cancer.org.
On the flip side of the coin, Dan Pallotta, founder of the California AIDS Ride and the Breast Cancer 3-Day Walk, gave a TED Talk in March of this year. He focused on whether nonprofits would be better off if they were allowed to behave more like for-profit companies, arguing that our cultural attitude toward charities – not allowing charities to make money, essentially – holds charities back.
Through mathematics, he proposed that if charities are allowed to become bigger and more like a for-profit company, the overall pool of donations gets bigger.
The problem with that logic is that while yes, millions more dollars are being donated, people don’t donate to charities to pay off their employees. We donate because we expect that our money is going to go toward the people that are the supposed focus of the charity.
Overall, I don’t support my money going toward making other people’s good intentions fail because they coincidentally used Komen’s color or wording. I won’t be doing any Komen-sponsored walks or wearing pink, and I certainly won’t donate my change to Komen when I’m asked at Safeway or Giant. Whether or not you choose to do the same is up to you, but bear in mind that your breast cancer research money won’t have made a difference if it ends up in someone else’s wallet.