**UPDATED**
Source: Susan G. Komen 2009-2010 Annual Report
via Mother Jones
From the AP: Karen Handel, Susan G. Komen official, resigns after Planned Parenthood dispute
Karen Handel, the charity’s vice president for public policy, told Komen officials that she supported the move to cut off funding for Planned Parenthood. She said the discussion started before she arrived at the organization and was approved at the highest levels of the charity.
“I am deeply disappointed by the gross mischaracterizations of the strategy, its rationale, and my involvement in it,” Handel said in her letter. “I openly acknowledge my role in the matter and continue to believe our decision was the best one for Komen’s future and the women we serve.”
Translation: I am deeply disappointed that I and Ari Fleischer got caught helping Susan G. Komen implement our religious conservative strategy at the expense of women. I openly acknowledge that I believe women do not deserve the same freedoms as men, starting with controlling our own bodies.
Don’t let the door hit in you on the way out.
The fight for full women’s freedom continues, but one villain has been slain.
woot! people power
For me this is to little to late for SGK, I will never support them again. They still can’t tell the truth, and continue to shuffle the blame around to someone but themselves. SGK is rotten from the top down, and one person resigning isn’t going to change anything.
Hi Angels81 – long time no see. SGK has always been rotten from the top down. Less than 73% of their budget goes for helping women but they do get nice salaries.
See the chart I just uploaded from Komen’s annual report, via Mother Jones.
Komen will never recover from this and deservedly so.
oOOOOPS!!!! BUSTED!!!!
I know I will never give Komen another dime of my money or minute of my time. And you can add most mega charities to my NO list. Small, local charities are all I am ever going to do again.
While I totally agree with Angels and Taylor about Komen, I am still marking this down as a red letter day!
As I said in my last line of the post above, a villain was slain.
Something that has come up during this controversy really bugs me. Both women Richards and Brinker make over a half a million dollors a year for their labors! Since when did leaders of not for profits need such high salaries? Makes them part of the 1% and therefore very unlikely to understand the average women and her needs. I don’t like to think of not for profits as performing noblesse oblige.It might explain why the women’s groups have all been co-opted.
INDEED!!!!!!. Apparently one of the ways to join the 1% is head some “not for profit” agency or group. The whole “not for profit” scam is just another of those quiet little disgraces riddling our social structure. ALL “not for Profits” should have complete transparency regarding payment of officials.
You can add public university presidents and upper administrative staff to that list.
Taylor Marsh 07 February 2012 at 12:04 pm #
Komen will never recover from this…………
I love the false bravado of the blogosphere where grand predictions are issued like traffic tickets knowing full well they will never hold themselves accountable later on.
Here’s a proposal for you, TM, if you not only have the courage of your convictions, but also want to assist some worthy causes.
Dedicate a piece of your right hand column to “TM predictions made”. You can start with the one above and hold me accountable for a $500 donation to PP in your name if their 2012 Annual Report does not show at least $381,924 in direct and race for the cure donations (the number comes from the same annual report shown above). If however, it is matched or bettered, you will also agree to donate $500 to the Alice B Toklas Club in the name of Rick Santorum.
Casual,
An NGO like Komen has to keep trust with the general public. Without trust, Komen dies a slow, miserable death. It has no value to its intended benefactors, women. It has no value to the corporations attempting to pink-wash their product with women. It has no value to the forced pregnancy crazies because of the blow-back that occurred from their strong-arming. Without the halo of a do-good mission, Komen becomes just another sleazy marketing tool that consumers will ignore. The pink ribbon becomes a tattered and soiled item, only fit for the land fill.
Komen lives or dies on its reputation, it lives or dies on its image. This is the reason Ms Handel was shot out of canon without as much as a “mother-may-I.” Komen had to show it “got” the message. I’m guessing that others in the higher ranks of Komen will be “offered the opportunity to explore exciting new horizons in new fields of endeavor” very shortly. To survive this PR disaster, to reset the visuals and the brand, there will be a house cleaning. As they said in “The Godfather”, “it’s not personal, it’s just business.”
And the business of Komen right now is surviving this clusterf**k. That is not as easy a thing to do as some would guess. For some, those who already had “issues” with Komen’s pursuit of the corporate dollar, Komen is dead to them. That cohort may be larger than you suspect Casual. Maybe Komen survives, but it will carry the scars of this incident for a very long time. Once you loose trust, it is very hard to regain it back.
SGK betrayed women. Case closed. I never supported them in the past and I never will.
The reason Komen will never recover from this is that once TRUST is broken it is very, very difficult to regain. And this was just trust that many, many women had with Komen to be FOR THEM.
Access to reproductive health care without the strong arm of govt., husband, father or other authorities in the way it totally personal and vitally important to women. Planned Parenthood represents this and gives us this autonomy and freedom.
To find that Komen defunded this organization that is of vital importance to women for right wing political reasons BROKE that trust.
This is very personal and the women whose trust has been broken are never coming back to Komen.
So PP receives $500 if your ego is assuaged?
casualobserver 07 February 2012 at 12:48 pm
I don’t need to make a bet or stack up their annual report against what they’ve already lost in respect. For the sake of women and the fight against breast cancer, I hope Komen and rival organizations, as well as Planned Parenthood, have a banner fundraising year off the travesty Komen caused. Lemon out of lemonade if it can be made.
Susan G. Komen will never recover from this event. Their reputation has been sullied. That’s indisputable today.
Komen has been revealed for bringing politics into the area of breast cancer funding of a foundation, which dragged along with it an anti-women agenda where privacy is concerned.
Progressives will never see Susan G. Komen for what it once was, whether they continue to give or not.
With the resignation of Karen Handel it’s pretty safe to say the right, many of whom gave to the foundation & participated in the walk, won’t either.
Speaking strictly for myself. I hope Taylor refuses the bet. There is something that is so Mitt Romney about it….
The fight for full women’s freedom continues, but one villain has been slain.
Well brace yourself Ms Marsh because the villains are about to bring in reinforcements. The forced pregnancy zealots are not done; not by a long shot.
“In the end, to stand for any aspect of women’s health is to stand for women as people of value. It is to say, or at least imply, that women have a right to live happy, healthy lives; that they need not die because a disease afflicts some “shameful” part of their bodies. There are no shameful parts of the body. There is no disease that should be allowed to ravage any women’s body because you have a problem with her having sexual agency. Women’s health should not be held hostage by a small minority of religious fundamentalists, and their foolish obsessions. It’s the cancer stupid.”
One villain at a time is good enough for me.
Right now is where the action is.
An obvious take away from this is what a liar Brinker is. She told Mitchell point blank that Handel had nothing to do with the decision. Of course, you only have to look at Brinker and listen to her voice to see she’s nothing but another over paid CEO.
Sandmann 07 February 2012 at 3:00 pm #
So PP receives $500 if your ego is assuaged?
Take the bet and you can find out.
Make it $50 if $500 sounds too 1% to you. I just wanted it to be big enough to register on the radar screen of the recipient organization.
The point is if talking was all that was required, liberals and Democrats would indeed rule the world.
Yeah, I get the whole “put your money where your mouth is” angle, and I really don’t care about your beef with Taylor. Your recent posts here are like a good cocktail topped off with a splash of piss, and since most people discard befouled refreshments…why do you continue to spike the punch?
I wonder, since Liberals and Dems are just talk….would you care to make that same bet regarding the upcoming election?
What I want to know is what the heck is included in education? That’s 1/3 of their budget for exactly what?
That is the rub eh Ga6th. Cynical types like me think it partially covers corporate shilling; getting that pretty pink ribbon plastered on product and then getting corporate dollars so the can get more corporate dollars. Great way to cover the fact that your admin cost are more than you are admitted, eh? But then again, I’m being cynical.
Count me among the cynical, too. It sounds like a great way to divert some of that money to some of the big supporters, particularly any who are in the publishing, news, or broadcast industries.
One of the things that got me thinking that way is that I don’t recall ever being educated by SGK in any meaningful way. I might have been, of course, but considering how they seem to pay so much attention to making themselves visible, it’s hard to believe I wouldn’t encounter them often enough to remember.