Shame on Susan G. Komen

Parent Cafe
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<p>I did not mean to say SGK is a bona fide public company according to the rule book of corporate governance or a legal structure that dictates its operation. What I meant is, it should more or less operate like a public company since they can’t hide their finances and they can’t escape public scrutiny. </p>

<p>Casino moguls of private casinos can do whatever they want as long as their actions are within a reasonable boundary. “PRIVATE” charities on the other hand cannot operate that way. For instance, nobody will say a peep if a Casino mogul travels in a private jet at company expense - it’s only between him/her and the board. Yet, if a CEO of a private charity, no matter how well endowed it is, travels on a private jet owned by the charity and bought for the purpose of transporting the executives, there will be public uproar among donors. After all, they are operating with DONOR (individual or corporate) contribution, not by selling products they make without any infusion from outside “good will” donation. </p>

<p>If you look at it from this perspective, then SGK was every bit a public company as anything, perhaps even more, when it comes to the obligation for transparency and accountability - because their revenue stream relies 100% public goodwill.</p>

<p>This is the point Brinker entirely missed. She probably and perhaps unconsciously felt that she is the founder and a “life giver” of this charity, and she is not accountable to pubic scrutiny and transparency like her counterparts at multi billion dollar public companies.</p>

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<p>Interesting articles-
[Public</a> Health reconsiders speaker | Yale Daily News](<a href=“http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/2012/feb/06/school-of-public-health-reconsidering/]Public”>http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/2012/feb/06/school-of-public-health-reconsidering/)</p>

<p>[Komen</a> founder will speak at YSPH Commencement | Cross Campus | Yale Daily News](<a href=“http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/2012/feb/06/komen-founder-will-speak-ysph-commencement/?cross-campus]Komen”>http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/2012/feb/06/komen-founder-will-speak-ysph-commencement/?cross-campus)</p>

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<p>Charities like SGK are in effect run like public companies albeit with a different purpose. Non profits have a board of directors who like the board of a public company help chart its course, to make sure for example that fundraising is going towards the mission of the charity and so forth. And like public companies charities operate in the public sphere, which means among other things they are quite sensitive to their public image; for a public corporation, the image can determine whether someone buys their product, for a charity whether people donate to them or support their cause or whatever. </p>

<p>"My point is that any donor can add restrictions to their donations. The donors only want to fund what they want to fund. It’s their money and their right, as a private foundation. Thus, the other services offered by PP are no longer that relevant to the donor; at least Komen no longer wants to support them going forward. In essence, Komen is redirecting funding from health ed and putting more $ into mammos. Less health educ = more mammos. OTOH, continued health educ = less mammos. "</p>

<p>The charity can donate to whom they want, but it doesn’t mean their decisions are going to sit well with their donors, who in the case of SGK are individual donors, money raised through walk a thons and so forth. People often talk about the right to do something and seem to confuse that as being the right to do as they wish and not take any heat about that, it reminds me when some public figure makes some statement, faces backlash for saying it, then starts whining about “freedom of speech”. </p>

<p>Komen had the right to do as they wish, but others have the right to express outrage at those decisions and take action based on that. People were outraged that Komen in effect supported the hard rights war on PP (which isn’t just abortion, it is also the fact that PP challenges their brain dead notion that if you don’t have things like PP around, people won’t be having sex out of marriage and so forth <em>gag</em>), it is making a decision to deny funding for health care services because a relatively small group of hard core anti abortionists hate the fact that PP in some places does abortions. I also will add that whatever Brinker thinks,if she thinks some huge amount of people in this country are pro life in the same way, they aren’t. They probably thought the overwhelming majority of people, pro life and pro choice, who don’t share the extreme view wouldn’t say anything or it wouldn’t be noticed, and they messed up, big time. From my take, it is losing sight of their mission, which is in preventing breast cancer and finding cures, to branching out into supporting a position that has nothing to do with breast cancer i.e pro life. Same with defunding stem cell research, while it is likely that is a small drop in the bucket of research $$$, given the political environment thanks again to the pro life types, with something like stem cell research private donations may have a lot more impact.</p>

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<p>I imagine the grants to PP fall under the Screening heading. They screen women for cancer by doing manual breast exams, and refer women out if they need mammograms.</p>

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<p>NCI budget is around $5 billion/year. In FY2010, they spent $631 million on breast cancer. </p>

<p>[Cancer</a> Research Funding - National Cancer Institute](<a href=“http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/NCI/research-funding]Cancer”>http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/NCI/research-funding)</p>

<p>And other NIH institutes fund additional cancer-related research. </p>

<p>Also, there is some support for cancer research from other federal agencies. For example, the DOD funds some breast cancer research.</p>

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<p>a bit of a data:</p>

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<p>Just one example. However, this seems like an exorbitant salary. I have worked for Fortune 100 companies, and I know the executive level salaries. </p>

<p>A VP Development (I assume business development) at the top performing global market share # 1 high tech company does not get that kind of salary - $430K. Please note: stock options and what not are NOT what it’s used to be. I won’t be surprised if there was more to this SGK executive compensation: in a form that is not converted into $ figure as part of the salary given as a paycheck. </p>

<p>their senior xecutives also travel in first class. I or my colleagues at the above mentioned high tech firm did NOT travel in first class, and we were literally printing money with a wild success of the products we were selling, while SGK executives “style” was funded by many donors who gave them precious $ out of good will operating on a tight budget (I am talking about individual donors).</p>

<p>So, what has SGK become lately with salaries like this and a CEO’s young son as a member of the board of directors?</p>

<p>Time to give our hard earned dollars to other charities…</p>

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<p>I’ll still support one of my friends who will still be doing the walk this year.</p>

<p>But I still think the move was one of the dumbest of the year…but nothing to match the Netflix debacle when it comes to arrogant, clueless organizational moves!</p>

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<p>Has anybody gone to Guidestar and pulled up their 990? Usually three years of tax returns are available.</p>

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<p>The Board of Directors really isn’t that large, and, relatively speaking, is a bunch of lightweights. They were/are in way over their heads:</p>

<p>[Susan</a> G. Komen for the Cure | About Us | Our People | Board of Directors | Board of Directors](<a href=“http://ww5.komen.org/AboutUs/BoardofDirectors.html]Susan”>http://ww5.komen.org/AboutUs/BoardofDirectors.html)</p>

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<p>For 2010 $173m in revenue - about $23m in salaries and comp.</p>

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<p>From the horse’s mouth (D1, who I just found out tonight had a state SGK chapter as one of her clients when she was doing a paid PR internship just out of college three years ago): the local/state/regional SGK offices absolutely hate corporate SGK. All the local groups want to do is run their walks, help the people locally and that’s it. D1 said they had a nail salon call the PR firm she worked at and offer to donate $2 per every client who chose pink to paint on their nails. The local SGK chapter had to clear it through corporate, and they denied it… said the local chapter couldn’t do it.</p>

<p>D1 said this whole fiasco has motivated her to make her first ever donation to PP, but she never liked corporate SGK after the run-ins she had with them as clients.</p>

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<p>so, does anyone has a number for what % of SGK’s revenue is allocated to program mission (meaning, not admin cost, not fund raising cost, etc, etc).</p>

<p>based on some sketch numbers I have seen, just salary & comp plus fund raising expenses is already 20% of their revenue, and this is not the totality of admin cost.</p>

<p>charity becomes suspect to me when the non-mission program expenses chew up more than 25%.</p>

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<p>

This is worth repeating. My husband reviews grants for the NIH regularly and it’s very depressing. They give grants great ratings, but no that hardly any of them will be funded. His lab remains small because it’s gotten so hard to get grants.</p>

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<p>Go to Guidestar and peruse the filings. You have to create an account, but it’s free. I only looked at the national headquarters filings. There are many other entities. </p>

<p>The list of grant recipients is interesting. They spend a lot of money to make money.</p>

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<p>My H has been asked to participate in this a couple of times at NIH, too, and really enjoys doing it (it is a LOT of prep work), but again, too many good requests for not enough funding available. He’s also had to excuse himself from several grant discussions that were proposed by people he has consulted with and built relationships with in academia.</p>

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<p>“Time to give our hard earned dollars to other charities…”</p>

<p>Sure, that’s right. Because we know all about what those “other charities” pay their VPs, and who is on their boards of directors, right? And we know that those other charities don’t pay big bucks to their high level staff members, certainly PP doesn’t (oops), well…</p>

<p>My point is this is hypocrisy. All of a sudden, some people care deeply about what the Komen foundation does with their money and what they pay to whom. And how many of you really check out what the CEO’s and VPs are paid at the charities you donate to, and who is on their board of directors? It just seems like making up excuses. If it angers you that they dared to pull funding because some of their donors didn’t want to support PP, then fine, pull your support. But be honest about it. I’ve been sick of seeing pink for a long time anyways.</p>

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<p>This today from the Wall Street Journal. Exposes Planned Parenthood for the thorough Nazi terrorist tactics employed. Komen represented just about $600,000 of the $1.0 billion in funding per year. A mini-mouse. However, for PP, it was all about abortion and the politics of abortion and, as the article below makes clear, PP was fully prepared to kill off Komen and ALL of its breast cancer work as revenge on Komen’s desire to get out of the abortion politics debate.</p>

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<p>I feel compelled to point out that the item above is an opinion column, not a news story.</p>

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<p>Placido stated…</p>

<p>“Exposes Planned Parenthood for the thorough Nazi terrorist tactics employed.”</p>

<p>seriously?</p>

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<p>Slate has a piece about SGK’s financials: [What</a> Does the Susan G. Komen Foundation Actually Do?](<a href=“http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2012/02/06/what_does_the_susan_g_komen_foundation_actually_do_.html]What”>What Does the Susan G. Komen Foundation Actually Do?)</p>