Komen’s Wild Ride

Title: Komen’s Wild Ride

Author: Alicia C. Staley

Publication: wegoHealth blog

Publication Date: June 10, 2011

Dear Susan G. Komen for the Cure:

Stop. Just stop. I’ve reached the point where I’m embarrassed by you and all your branding efforts for the cure. I see tons of pink ribbons, plastered on everything from shampoo to lawn mowers and cat litter.  I’m beyond aware.  I’m frustrated.  I can no longer justify your breast cancer awareness campaigns to my friends that want to know why there’s no cure.  I’ve received more emails in the past week over at Awesome Cancer Survivor expressing exasperation at the breast cancer community than I care to count.  As a breast cancer survivor, I shouldn’t have to justify your behaviors.

When you launched your partnership with Kentucky Fried Chicken  (aka “Buckets for the Cure”), I excused your lapse of judgment.  I assumed it was a temporary slip, and you’d eventually focus your energies back on partnerships and alliances that aligned more closely with your stated goal of “For the Cure.”  You trumpeted the partnership, declaring KFC would make the largest one time donation of an estimated $8 million to Komen. The ultimate goal of the $8 million donation never materialized.  According to your own reports, you only took in $4.2 million.  Not pocket change by any stretch of the imagination, but only about half of what you were looking to grab. You are the self-proclaimed leader of the breast cancer community.  Where is your leadership?

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Cause Bandits: How Would Your Nonprofit Respond?

Title: Cause Bandits: How Would Your Nonprofit Respond?

Author: Jen Price

Publication: Advancing Impact

Publication Date: June 7, 2011

There has been much controversy surrounding Susan G. Komen for the Cure recently. So much so, that the criticism has founded an organized movement.

People are joining together over “mounting concerns about Komen’s organizational leadership, trademark feuds, corporate partnerships and branding activities, pinkwashing, limited successes, and unbalanced program allocations. A critical mass of concerned citizens, many of whom had supported Komen over the years, are now asking whether the ends justify the means.”

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Enter the Komen Bandits — Racing With A Message for BC Mets

Title: Enter the Komen Bandits — Racing With A Message for BC Mets

Author: Gayle Sulik

Publication: Pink Ribbon Blues blog

Publication Date: June 4, 2011

This weekend marks the 22nd annual Susan G. Komen Global Race for the Cure® 5K at the National Mall in Washington, DC. Nearly 40,000 people participated and the event raised more than $5 million. Reports of the race festivities are awash with celebrity, festivity, performance, and unbridled enthusiasm.

Susan G. Komen for the Cure’s founder, Ambassador Nancy G. Brinker, “charged up the crowd, noting that the sea of pink making their way up the National Mall was a bold statement by this community that we will not rest until our promise to end breast cancer forever is fulfilled.” She went on to say that, “If my sister Suzy were here today, she would take joy in the inspiration you provide. She’d take pride that in a politically divided city, there is unity on this issue. She’d take comfort in the fact that hopes are high, and that a cure is near.”

SGK social media was all a twitter with live feeds from the race revealing a mood that was triumphant, proud, and promising while solidifying the message that Komen is responsible for progress.

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Susan G. Komen for the Cure Isn’t Curing Anything

Title: Susan G. Komen for the Cure Isn’t Curing Anything

Author: Amy

Publication: Just West of Crunchy blog

Publication Date: June 3, 2011

Susan G. Komen for the Cure isn’t curing anything. This is an organization I used to really support. I have a history of breast cancer in my family and the two naturally met. But the more I’ve learned about Komen, the more upset I’ve become at the way their organization works.

This isn’t going to be an exhaustive list of everything I find to be wrong with Susan G. Komen for the Cure [Komen, herein]. I’m going to touch on a few of the more egregious points and some of the things I’ve learned most recently. A lot of people have rosy Pink glasses on when it comes to Komen; today, I’m asking you to suspend whatever you believe about this nonprofit and think critically about them.  If you walk away still liking them, that’s fine. But I hope people will at least be open to the idea that this organization isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

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It’s Just A Little Bottle of Perfume, Or Is It?

Title: It’s Just A Little Bottle of Perfume, Or Is It?

Author: Nancy Stordahl

Publication: Nancy’s Point blog

Publication Date: June 2, 2011

Sometimes those of us in the breast cancer blogosphere are accused of taking things too seriously and maybe we do at times; with our permanently altered viewpoint from cancer world, it’s hard sometimes not to. How can you possibly be upset about a tiny bottle of perfume you might wonder?

Last week when I heard about the latest “round of discontent,” I thought, really? It’s just a little bottle of perfume isn’t it? Is it really that big a deal? Well no, in and of itself, it isn’t such a big deal. It is just a little bottle of perfume and purchasing this particular fragrance and dabbing on a little won’t really matter. Or will it?

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Promise me you’ll read the ingredients on this pink perfume!

Title: Promise me you’ll read the ingredients on this pink perfume!

Author: Kim Irish

Publication: Think Before You Pink blog / Breast Cancer Action

Publication Date: June 1, 2011

Susan G. Komen for the Cure has partnered with TPR Holdings, LLC, a New York City-based investor and operator in the consumer products industry, to create a perfume called Promise Me.  According to the fragrance’s website, the pink-tinted Promise Me is “The Scent of Inspiration.”  Its neatly packaged bottles and gift sets, with the all-too-familiar Komen ribbon emblazoned on the side, remind us that it’s not just inspiration Komen and TPR Holdings wants – they want us to shop our way to a cure.

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Komen Has Crossed The Line

Title: Komen Has Crossed The Line

Author: Chemobabe

Publication: Chemobabe blog

Publication Date: May 28, 2011

While I have had fun making fun of all the pink crap that purports to support breast cancer patients, I have avoided direct criticism of the Susan Komen Foundation. Until now.

It’s not just because they are one of the top two most trusted nonprofit brands and I want to stay in my readers’ good graces. I respect you too much to pander like that.

I have hesitated because of people like this:

I don’t know these women. I got their picture off Flickr.

They are completely fabulous though.

I know women who have felt transformed by the Three Day Walks, Komen’s signature event. I cannot overstate their symbolic power.  They provide community. They make a natural place for a comeback from treatment or even grief. They are a way of giving cancer the middle finger. The feeling of unity and purpose at these events humbles me.

How can you criticize an organization that makes these experiences possible?

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Ko-Mart.Org

Title: Ko-Mart.Org

Author:  Kathi Kolb

Publication:  The Accidental Amazon blog

Publication Date: May 26, 2011

“Support the Cure — Start Shopping”
So says the banner on a snazzy new website for “Promise Me” Perfume, the latest offspring of a corporate sponsorship between Susan G. Komen, the breast cancer fundraiser, and TPR Holdings LLC, a New York-based “operator in the consumer products industry[…investing in] scalable mass and prestige opportunities in health, beauty and wellness categories…and providing transition services for large consumer products companies including Shiseido Cosmetics and Procter & Gamble. TPR principals have founded and developed such international brands as ZIRH Men’s Skincare, John Varvatos Fragrances and French Connection Beauty.”  And now, TPR has latched onto that most marketable of brands, breast cancer.

Sometimes, I swear, these posts practically write themselves.  If there is actually anyone left on the planet, or at least in the United States, who is not aware that breast cancer is no longer merely a pernicious and incurable disease, but has in fact become a ubiquitous brand and a profitable marketing opportunity for manufacturers, then let me enlighten you.

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Are We Really Racing for the Cure?

Title:  Are We Really Racing for the Cure?

Author:  Nancy Stordahl

Publication:  Nancy’s Point blog

Publication Date: May 12, 2011

This past Sunday was of course Mother’s Day. It was also the day earmarked for the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure at the Mall of America in Bloomington, MN. (I live close to the Twin Cities and lived there for many years, hence my interest). While watching the news Sunday night and observing the anchors beaming and smiling, I found myself feeling fidgety, uncomfortable and yes, even guilty because I was not feeling what I was supposed to be feeling. I was not feeling all warm, fuzzy and grateful. In fact, I was feeling the opposite. I was feeling a bit ungrateful. Why?

The story was meant to be of the warm and fuzzy type, the kind of story that makes everyone watching feel good, it was Sunday evening after all. And not just any Sunday evening, Mother’s Day Sunday evening.

The news clips captured yet another sea of pink, another shining example of the success of the pink ribbon campaigns.

The event drew in 55,000 walkers, a new record, and 2.5 million dollars were raised. The anchors proudly stated this particular race has grown to be the second largest in the world, probably due to the Mother’s Day date as well as the location; again, it takes place at the Mall of America.

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Tie a pink ribbon ’round that old deadly tumor.

Title: Tie a pink ribbon ’round that old deadly tumor.

Author: rjheart

Publication: Open Salon blog: Welcome to My World

Publication Date: April 10, 2011

The Susan G. Komen foundation was founded in 1982 following the death of Susan Komen, sister of Nancy Brinker. Nancy Brinker is the founder and CEO of one of the most powerful and profitable “non-profits” in the world. Susan Komen died after three years of fighting breast cancer. She was diagnosed at a time when little was known about this deadly disease. People would cross the street to avoid going near the 36 year old woman because of their fear that she was contagious.

Susan’s last years were spent in pain and fear. Radiation treatments and breast removal were her only paths of hope. She reached out to her fellow sufferers and died with the dream that no one would ever again suffer the way that she had. Her sister vowed to bring her dream to reality. Using her experience in marketing and the influence of her family’s wealth, she began to raise money for awareness and treatment of the disease that killed her sister and nearly took her own life.

In 1984, Nancy Brinker also detected a lump in her breast and demanded immediately that the doctors remove both her breasts. Following their removal, she was given chemotherapy and survived. The experience of watching her sister wither away and die had made her choice of aggressive treatment obvious. She then wrote a book detailing her experience and guiding other women to fight and to speak out.

1982 saw the death of Susan Komen and the birth of breast cancer awareness.

Here we are. It is 2011.

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