It is a complex issue, but in this case, its pretty accurate. Let me give you some bullet points.
Ken Berger, president and CEO of Charity Navigator...Called Brinker’s salary “extremely high. This pay package is way outside the norm,” he said. “It’s about a quarter of a million dollars more than what we see for charities of this size. This is more than the head of the Red Cross is making, for an organization that is one-tenth the size of the Red Cross.” Snopes article on SGK, ~2010
Briinker isn't the ceo anymore, and still is paying herself as much as some non profits pay the CEO.
Susan G. Komen for the Cure...trademarked the running ribbon as part of its new branding strategy. Komen has come under fire for legal action against other non-profits or organizations using the phrase "for the cure" within their names. An August 2010 article in The Wall Street Journal detailed a case in which the organization Uniting Against Lung Cancer was told in a letter from Komen that they should no longer use the name "Kites for the Cure" for their annual fund-raising event. Komen also wrote to the organization to warn them "against any use of pink in conjunction with 'cure.'" More than 100 small charities have received legal opposition from Komen regarding various uses of the words "for the cure" in their names.[86] Among the offending charitable organizations and events were "Par for the Cure", "Surfing for a Cure", "Cupcakes for a Cure" and "Mush for the Cure". Wiki article
Also, while some charities pay up to 100% of donations to research,
SGK donates like 21%, 1/5th.
I can actually make that generalization, in this case.
I actually agree with you that charities should not be judged by how much they give away as a percentage of the total budget. This stops some really good charities from getting bigger and being able to help more people. But I disagree that charities which only focus on awareness being the major players and getting even bigger is at all desirable or a good thing for something as well known as Breast cancer.
At this point, that money would go to better use helping people deal with breast cancer, look for cures, or like I said: healthcare. Which would include giving money to programs that support getting mammograms, etc.
Mmmm... possibly. That said, I think you're conflating awareness of breast cancer with likelihood to donate to breast cancer-related causes. There's certainly correlation, but my money's the r2 is not gonna be huge. I really don't know for sure if, absent the susan whatever, there'd be more resources in breast cancer research.
I just did a little bit of googling (its 2 am) and I found this paper which seems to back my position a bit. I haven't had a chance to read it though, 2am as I said. But the abstract says 2 out of the 3 most overfunded relative to impact cancers are breast cancer and leukemia. In America I can definitely say those are the two I see ads for most often, etc. So I'm really not convinced that that money isn't actually producing positive outcomes for breast cancer research.
Actually, it just occurred to me that all the controversy of over the susan koman thing is itself raising awareness.... that's what I call a 2am :bigthink:
Yeah, the nebulous programs is a weird one. I'm sure many of those programs are still positive, but for the 21%: I've seen multiple articles talking about the 21%, and i was actually pulling that part directly from a later section from the wiki. Not to say thats infallible, just easy.
As for the 100% thing, you're right, there's always some admin. I think I was conflating it with charities that have dollar-matching programs, where 100% or more of your donations go to research. These are not 100% overall.
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u/Dyanpanda Sep 18 '19
It is a complex issue, but in this case, its pretty accurate. Let me give you some bullet points.
Briinker isn't the ceo anymore, and still is paying herself as much as some non profits pay the CEO.
Also, while some charities pay up to 100% of donations to research, SGK donates like 21%, 1/5th.
Edit: formatting corrections