Breast cancer donations need transparency

Growing up, I never thought too much about breast cancer.

My classmates wore “I love boobies” bracelets that made me giggle, my sister dyed a strand of her hair pink one October and I owned one or two T-shirts with a pink ribbon on it. I was aware of the significance, but it felt like more of a trend than anything.

Until two years ago, when my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer, my outlook on the “pink” craze remained simple: by wearing this item, I support women with breast cancer. But upon my mother’s diagnosis of breast cancer and through the months of watching her suffer, I knew my pink tee wasn’t doing anything for her or anyone else with the disease.

According to Breastcancer.org, breast cancer is the second leading cause of death among women in the United States, and about 12 percent of women will develop invasive breast cancer in their lifetime. Furthermore, 40,450 women are expected to die from breast cancer in 2016 alone.

Given the amount of American women afflicted with breast cancer annually, the awareness surrounding the disease is commendable. But is it enough?

We constantly see the color pink — breast cancer’s signature color — on T-shirts, magnets, water bottles, ribbons and almost any merchandise you can find, especially in October as it’s Breast Cancer Awareness Month. But do the companies selling the pink gear follow through and put money toward fundraising or research like they claim? Or does the pink we see every day solely exist in the spirit of “breast cancer awareness?”

It seems many organizations such as the NFL and BIC have no problem promoting their merchandise in the name of breast cancer awareness, but they fail to give specifics on where the money they say they’ll donate ends up. The breast cancer cause is much greater than a pink ribbon, and donors deserve transparency in where their money goes.

There’s absolutely no harm in wearing the T-shirt or anything related, but perhaps when companies begin capitalizing on a deadly disease, we can begin to question whether it’s worth investing our money somewhere where we absolutely know our money is going to help women afflicted with the disease.

Take the National Football League, for example. Every October, the NFL hosts a campaign, a Crucial Catch, to help spread awareness for the disease as well as raise funds for research. Through the official NFL Shop, people are able to buy pink-themed gear with 100 percent of the proceeds raised through merchandise sales donated to the American Cancer Society.

Since 2011, the campaign has raised over $15 million, with a majority of the money coming from the merchandise sales. However, the page fails to note the exact percentage that the American Cancer Society receives after costs — such as the manufacturer, retailer and the program taking their cut.

We’re not sure how much the percentage is, but some reports suggest it could be as low as 8 percent. When a pink-themed sweatshirt from the NFL shop can cost up to $75, that means a mere $6 would end up going to the organization. We deserve to have more transparent information on how much of that is actually going towards life-saving research or fundraising.

Then, consider The North Face, a popular clothing brand. This company sells breast cancer-themed jackets and states on their website that they make an annual donation to two separate research organizations. However, they don’t specify exactly how much that annual donation is or if buying one of these jackets goes toward that donation.

Other companies like BIC, who sell pink related stationery products, have a set donation of $50,000 that isn’t related to their pink merchandise sales at all.

In addition to settling the transparency issue of how much of our money actually go towards breast cancer organizations, it’s also important to know how helpful these organizations are.

One organization that has come under fire in recent years is the Susan G. Komen Foundation. Although the organization is transparent about how much money it raises each year and how much it donates, it has been scrutinized for the high salary of its CEO when fundraisers in several cities had been cancelled and for temporarily pulling funds to Planned Parenthood, an organization that annually provides over 75,000 breast exams annually, according to their website. Last year, the Foundation brought in $250,276,362 according to its annual report, and donated $216,147,708.

There are a lot of very helpful organizations out there aiming to help women prevent and fight breast cancer such as Bright Pink, which clearly demonstrates on their annual report how they work and what they do with the funds that they raise. The national nonprofit — focusing on the prevention and early detection of breast and ovarian cancer — discloses their revenue, sponsors, partners, expenses and the distribution of services the expenses go toward. Last year, the group raised and donated about $3.5 million.

Breast cancer is a serious disease that affects too many women. While raising awareness is important to an extent, I’m not sure if I want to spend my money on a pink product if it’s only going to go towards the company. I’d rather spend it on a product if I could see how much of my money is actually being donated and where exactly that donation is going.

Write to Julia Aldrich at jla85@pitt.edu