As several readers have pointed out in the comments to our Leading Off item this morning, Nancy Brinker finds herself in an odd position with today’s news. Brinker is the CEO of Susan G. Komen for the Cure, which has pulled its funding from Planned Parenthood because — purportedly — Komen has a new policy that prevents it from supporting organizations that are under investigation. Which Planned Parenthood is. Read about the Congressional investigation here. Maybe it will turn up something. But many say it’s just a politically motivated ploy orchestrated by anti-abortion forces.
No matter your beliefs about the abortion debate, you’ve got to wonder how Brinker is handling the ordeal. Because not only is she the CEO of Komen, she also supports Planned Parenthood. As recently as last year, she sat on the advisory council for Planned Parenthood of North Texas (warning: link opens PDF). And, as KomenWatch has noted, in 1996 Planned Parenthood gave Brinker its Gertrude Shelburne Humanitarian Award, an honor that KomenWatch says is often omitted from Brinker’s CV.
What Brinker has here, I believe, is a sticky wicket.
41 comments
“preventing it from supporting organizations that are under investigation?” – sounds like a load of hooey to me. Investigation by whom? Any of the larger national non-profit or government entities these days find themselves in a constantly revolving door of lawsuits, investigations, depositions, etc. It’s the nature of doing business with large segments of the public, especially if the organizations mission can be at all construed as controversial or polarizing.
Sorry, but this is not a “sticky wicket”, you either support the causes you believe in courageously, or you are a coward.
Someone’s been reading the Gingrich playbook.
She and Romney aren’t concerned about the very poor.
Just politics as usual…..Brinker is no humanitarian. She is self-serving.
Leave it to Tim Rogers to rationalize for the Dallas rich to which his entire life is beholden to. No one buys your crap Rogers. Stick with selling Best Prostate Exams.
Ms. Brinker, Dr. King would like a word with you:
“On some positions, Cowardice asks the question, “Is it safe?” Expediency asks the question, “Is it politic?” And Vanity comes along and asks the question, “Is it popular?” But Conscience asks the question “Is it right?” And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must do it because Conscience tells him it is right.”
Pulling Planned Parenthood funding probably has less to do with Ms. Brinker than with Komen’s new Senior VP for Public Policy Karen Handel, a Republican anti-abortion activist who basically campaigned for Governor in Georgia on a platform of defunding Planned Parenthood.
She couldn’t do it through winning an election, so she is doing it via SGK.
People need to realize that the anti-abortion activists would rather watch women literally die on the streets than to put together any kind of abortion policies that make sense. State after state is cutting funding for all kinds of women’s services (including Texas, of course, who never met a poor woman they wouldn’t want to add suffering to) on the “abortion mill” message.
Regardless of Nancy Brinker’s dilemma, Komen now has strong links to the anti-choice movement. Its new vice president of public policy, Karen Handel, ran for governor of Georgia in 2010 on an aggressively anti-choice platform, part of which was a pledge to defund Planned Parenthood.
No sticky wicket — as CEO of Komen, she has a fiduciary duty to act in that entity’s best interests. If Komen believes that it will lose substantial contributions as a result of its funding of PP, then she has to act to protect Komen. She can still give as much money personally to PP as she wants, including up to the amount that Komen is no longer providing.
Here’s an end-around. Komen should supply vouchers for breast exams, screening, etc…they could expressly exclude abortion, contraceptives, and the like. Candidates pick up the vouchers through Komen and redeem them at Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood has to give an accounting to Komen – essentially an invoice listing the services procured by the patients under the vouchers. If it all passes muster, Komen pays for the services. Bottom line: Komen funds only the services offered by Planned Parenthood related to breast cancer, with a firewall between it and the more controversial stuff.
The comments in this and the previous thread below demonstrate why we’re so fortunate that we live in a constitutional republic rather than under mob democracy. The other thing to be thankful for is Nancy Brinker being the steward of other peoples’ money rather than all you hysterical philanthropists feverishly emptying your wallets for women’s health while commenting here.
Komen has a policy restricting giving the funds it has taken fiduciary responsibility for to organizations under investigation. Any and all such organizations. That seems pretty prudent to me. I wouldn’t want Komen distributing my contributions to the Acorn we all saw so famously exposed, nor to some fly by night organized crime outfit that threw together a bunch of prostitutes only to skim some free female health money from a careless do-gooder.
Contrary to what most of the commenters seem to want to claim without a shred of proof, Komen has not permanently spurned PP for religious or political reasons surrounding abortion. It has suspended distributions of OTHER PEOPLES’ MONEY while PP is under investigation. If the charges prove bogus, PP will be cleared in short order and Komen can pick right up where it left off. Are any of you claiming PP will be found guilty of financial or other wrongdoing? Are you claiming the government shouldn’t audit the money it spends?
Really, if there’s even one of you out there that lets someone else freely play with your money the way you want Brinker to play with Komen’s, tell us your tale. Better, with specifics so we can all do our part helping you get rid of it. Geez, no wonder there’s always such a ready market in bridges for sale around these parts.
Hey Thom, your so call “investigation” is a one man witch-hunt and a fraud, there is no investigation.
http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfairpark/2012/02/dallas-based_komen_foundation.php
Also, Obama is an American Citizen.
@Thom – if this is truly about fiduciary responsibility in not funding grantees under investigation, why has the national organization granted an exemption to their Denver affiliate? If the national organization is truly enforcing this policy as part of it’s responsibility to donors, they wouldn’t consider granting such an exemption, would they?
Policy is an easy thing to hide behind. I’d be very curious as to when specifically this policy was defined, and how often it has been enforced, wouldn’t you?
@Thom – Are you saying I can buy my very own bridge? Here in Dallas? How much?
My, my, what a bunch of caged ideological rats snarling over someone else’s cheese we have here. Here’s a thought, preciouses, cash out the internet connections, the pricy smart phone contracts, the lattes, and every other frou-frou luxury in your life, everything but food and rent, and use the money to pay for some poor woman’s health needs directly every month for the rest of your lives. Yeah….didn’t think so. Isn’t moralizing on your employer’s dime about what other people aren’t doing great?
Non-response IS a response, Thom.
Some of us work for honest to god non-profits, Thom. We have to answer these kinds of questions when our donors ask them, so it’s fair that those who have donated to Komen get to ask and criticize too.
So, to be fair, I’ll ask again. Wouldn’t you like to know when the policy regarding grantees under investigation was put into place, and how often it has been enforced? If the answer is 10 years and anytime an instance of investigation is brought to light, then kudos to the Komen for not being hypocritical. If the answer is recently (like, say, when the investigation into PP started) and only in this instance, then I think they owe some answers to their donors.
SGK will have a huge swell of donations. Pro choice types wring hands on blogs. Pro life types write checks. Well played, Nancy Brinker.
Towski, you’re seriously claiming a non-profit or any other institution has to justify why it begins a policy at one particular time rather than another? Not whether the policy itself is sound, but the reason why it was implemented on a Monday instead of on a Wednesday? Thanks for alerting us that your non-profit suffers from some serious payroll padding.
@Thom That OTHER PEOPLE’S MONEY that you think Brinker is being so responsible with, is some of mine. SO, yeah, I’ll keep asking and commenting because unlike you, it isn’t someone else’s cheese that I’m complaining about.
Liz, why don’t you give the money you want to go to mammograms directly to Planned Parenthood? Komen’s core mission is scientific research to find a cure for breast cancer. Welfare health exams for poor women is at best mission creep that dilutes dollars and attention from that core mission, something Towski would immediately grasp if he were employed as he pretends to be. Komen is not obligated to you, Liz, or to anyone else to provide a one-stop giving depot for your emotional or any other convenience, particularly if it both distracts from their core mission and violates an imminently sound funding control policy.
But I see below that not only did you just not give mammogram money to Planned Parenthood, you decided you would stamp your feet like Grumpy Demo and spite Komen breast cancer research as well because they don’t run their organization according to your arbitrary whims. What a blazing beacon of humane morality you are, Liz. Why didn’t you just stuff a half gallon of chocolate ice cream in your face instead? It would have accomplished at least as much as you accomplished for anyone but yourself by shorting Komen while at least filling you all up with chocolaty yumminess.
Susan is rolling in her grave over the death sentance you just gave women with breast cancer! Another great foundation gone political and lost your focus!
sorry but the link to the “investigation” takes you to an AP story
here is a link which may explain why PP is under investigation
“the story titled “Planned Parenthood’s missing millions” that fo- cused on $1.3 billion of government money received by Planned Parenthood from 2003 to 2008, which was left unaccounted for when the Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued a report on the expenditures of federal funds by the abortion giant.”
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/apr/5/planned-parenthoods-millions-still-missing/
an interesting video here
http://youtu.be/aq0kBkUZbvQ
finally how many anti-abortion Komen donors were aware that Komen was funding PP?
Edgar, you must not realize what this story is about. The funds that were provided by SGK to Planned Parenthood were already used exclusively on breast examinations and breast-related health services. Your entire scheme would do nothing, because not a dime of SGK’s donations went to abortions in the first place. Your “firewall” scheme would serve no purpose because you can’t decrease the amount of SGK money being used to fund abortions when it was $0 to begin with.
Beliefs about the abortion debate is not the matter.
When she hired a right-wing politition she must have wanted this to happen. The issue is women.s health. Period.
Maybe Nancy could give part of her nearly $500,000 annual SGK salary to PP. It’s a shame that poor women who rely of PP for their health care suffer another indignity. I will donate directly to PP specifically for breast cancer screening from now on.
My,my,my how the position of the extreme right does just go on and on and how have extreme right wing/wrong/politics gotten into this discussion of health for poor women…those 2words alone cause fright into the minds of those male elites..who CAREA about a poor and even worse a POOR WOMAN?You people are sick.
What a bunch of hysterical Bulls**t.
The abortion mills won’t skip a beat. PP has over a billion dollars.
The money will be redirected to ACTUAL services that PP directs women to that don’t include cosmetic tissue removal.
It’ll be interesting how this plays out….I’m holding out for the fact that the Susan G. Komen Foundation is going to lose money out of this decision. I for one and stopping my support of them from this day forward.
@thefncrow: Does the money go into the operating fund for PP? How is the money currently accounted for? You seem to be stating that there already is a “firewall.” I haven’t read that – perhaps you could explain. If there is, great. Incidentally, I do grasp the notion that even an association with PP might be controversial. I also grasp the idea that there is suspicion about whether invoking the policy is a pretext.
@liz Landry.
No the money is not yours, it is SKG’s. It may have at one point been yours, it isn’t anymore. You certainly have a say in whether or not you choose to make any more of your money theirs, but once you have given it away you lost ownership of it.
@Edgar:
The money given to PP by SGK came in the form of grants. Grants aren’t just unconditional cash donations that get dumped in the general fund. Normally, these funds come with strings attached in the form of specifying exactly what this grant money can be used for and an auditing procedure to ensure that it was followed up on.
The details of the agreement for SGK’s grants to PP don’t appear to be public, but I’d be absolutely shocked if SGK provided PP with grants without conditions that it be used on breast cancer screening and breast-related health care.
We had a nanny 16 years ago who had a breast lump. Within 15 minutes and 3 phone calls, I found a clinic that would do a screening for $5 through my Ob/Gyn at Medical City. (Turned out not to be cancer.) We didn’t need PP or SGK to take care of it. After that, my husband and I ponied up the cost of health insurance for anyone working for us (nannies, housekeepers, etc.) It was the right thing to do. I’m not a rocket scientist…if I could figure that out, I don’t understand why others can’t do that.
Nancy Brinker issued a statement, and the video is on the DMN website. It was a policy change.
Not interested in the poor women that Planned Parenthood helps, just interested in the money that this chairity takes in. If you were interested in the poor women and not caving to GOP interests, this would not be happening.
No more help from this cancer survivor. I’ll give my money elsewhere.
I do not believe Susan G Koman asked her sister to promise to end breast cancer…. only for women who could afford it, and I do not buy that their actions have been mischaracterized. Any dollars that I would have earmarked for them now go directed to Planned Parenthood.
We should all be in the streets over this. This woman is a fraud and a scammer. She has used her dead sister as a platform to make oodles of $$$$. She is the devil.
To the Susan G Komen Foundation,
I have raised many dollars and walked many miles for this cause and organization.
Your recent actions are deplorable, inexcusable and quite possibly the stupidest move I have ever seen.
Once respected for incredible success in fund raising and commitment to a goal and actually making progress toward that goal, you have managed to offend a group from which you get your most heartfelt support and where you have done the most good.
Religious or political purposes do not have a place in your organization, at least not the organization I have supported. Perhaps I should have done more research about the true agenda of your organization, though the message to find a cure seemed beautifully simple and clear to me.
I will not walk again this year….I think this would have been my fifth year. I will not contact everyone I can possibly think of to ask them to part with their very hard earned dollars to support your organization….ever again.
Perhaps some might think that there is a reasonable explanation for your actions or that you simply had no choice. But you did have a choice. You made the wrong one. You have done irreparable harm to the name of Komen and that is not something you will ever be able to undo. You have sent a very strong message to both sides of this issue.
To the hateful and intolerant people you have sent a message that they have power they should not have, even power over the sincere, strong and brave women and men all over this country who have walked sixty miles in three days in the support of your cause to end breast cancer. And believe me we were not walking for the cause you now show yourselves to support.
You sent a message to those strong and sincere women and men all over this country that without warning the power they feel from their commitment to finding a cure could be taken away and replaced with shame to even be associated with the name Komen. Taking that power away, creating an association to a way of thinking I do not share, turning something so good into something so wrong……this is something you had no right to do.
There is another possibility, other than having made an incredibly stupid decision and that is that you wish to do damage to Planned Parenthood in an effort to make your statement about the right to abortion in this country. If that is the case……then (pardon the expression) grow a pair! Don’t turn Komen into a sneaky behind the scenes deal maker for the frightened right in this country. Boldly stand up for what you believe and make your organization into what it truly appears to be. Don’t hide behind the passion that finding a cure evokes. Stand up proudly and say we are ‘right to lifers working on a cure for breast cancer’. I’m sure you will get plenty of support (not mine, of course) and you won’t have done it in such a smarmy fashion.
My beliefs on this matter are strong and apparently so are yours. But that didn’t belong in our relationship. I knew Komen because I believed in finding a cure and kept my politics for another arena. But you did not! Shame on you!
Previously, I admired Nancy Brinker for what she has done in her sister’s name. I now believe she’s lost her way.
I do not believe the defunding of PP has anything to do with it being “under investigation.” PP is under attack, and SGK is running. Why would any organization promoting women’s health hire a Karen Handel?? It was a Sign, and I think Susan G. Komen would have been appalled.
I will no longer support SGK, will not purchase from companies promoting SGK, and will increase my support for PP.
This all sounds suspicious to me. The Republicans are trying their best to take away voter rights from minorities, eliminate union rights because they support Democrats more than Republicans, eliminate women’s right to an abortion and terminate/reduce Medicare and social security. I support women’s rights and will no longer support SGK fund raising.
Remember Nancy Brinker receives in excess of $400,000 per year in salary fighting for her deceased sister.
You all need to vote with your check book and send your $ to Planned Parenthood and not to SGK.
I’m enraged at the Komen decision. Shame on those who would use politics to eliminate the opportunity for women to receive vital medical diagnoses. I am cutting the pink ribbon today. Much more money to PP.. Not one more cent to your group.