Walkers along Constitution Ave for the Susan G. Komen Global Race for the Cure at the National Mall, Washington, DC, June 4, 2011. (Photo by Evy Mages for the Washington Post)
Honest Tea, the Bethesda-based company that began partnering with Komen two years ago, is pausing to rethink its options. It donated $100,000 to Komen last year. While the amount is small compared with donations from large corporations, Komen is one of Honest Tea’s largest partnerships with a nonprofit group, said company president Seth Goldman.
‘It’s unsettling’
Susan G. Komen Foundation reversed course and dropped its ban on grants to Planned Parenthood for breast cancer screenings. (Feb. 3)
Where Planned Parenthood is and what it does.
The company wants to support breast cancer awareness and research, he said. He’s just not sure Komen is the best recipient.
“I’m encouraged that they’ve restored [Planned Parenthood] funding,” he said. “But it’s unsettling to think you’re supporting one thing and then it changes.” It was particularly unsettling, he said, for him to learn the news by reading it in the newspaper.
Public relations experts say Komen needs to be much more transparent with supporters and donors in the weeks ahead about how it works and who gets money.
“If they don’t fund Planned Parenthood, they are going to be criticized,” and if they do provide grants, they are also going to be criticized, said Joann Rodgers, who once handled media and communications for Johns Hopkins Medicine, which put in place stronger protections after the death of a clinical trial volunteer in 2001.
Komen also needs to better explain its message and “not let others frame the story,” she said.
The poor communication had the biggest impact for a core group of supporters who care about breast cancer and not about the politics of abortion, said Komen board member John D. Raffaelli. During last week’s roller coaster, these supporters were frustrated that the organization was letting “the left grab one leg and the right grab the other leg, and it would rip us apart,” he said.
By contrast, Planned Parenthood mobilized public opinion almost immediately.
Moments after the Associated Press reported the news late Tuesday that Komen was barring the organization from receiving funds, Planned Parenthood blasted news releases via e-mail and Twitter and posted the information on Planned Parenthood’s Facebook wall.
More than 2,000 supporters shared that post with their own friends on the social network. On Twitter, Planned Parenthood wrote “ALERT: Susan G. Komen caves under anti-choice pressure, ends funding for breast cancer screenings at PP health centers.” More than 500 Twitter users reposted that message.
On Facebook, Planned Parenthood has added more than 32,000 fans since Tuesday, spokesman Tait Sye said.
In response to the Komen decision, Planned Parenthood had a simple strategy for Facebook and Twitter. “We gave people things to do,” Sye said. The organization sent out suggestions to donate, sign an online petition, tweet about the issue and post a Planned Parenthood badge on Facebook.
“All of it,” he said, “is meant to reinforce the idea of showing public support.”
By contrast, Komen was caught off guard by the rush of developments.
It was clear to Laura Farmer Sherman, executive director of the Komen affiliate in San Diego, that national leaders did not have a strategy to manage the crisis.
“They would be the first to admit they’re a grass-roots organization,” she said. “I think that’s one of the lessons learned. . . . Most of these people are public-health workers. What do they know from standing in front of the camera. . . . We need to sharpen up our tool kits.”
Changes for the better
Sometimes a crisis can spur an organization to make changes for the better, said Rodgers, a part-time faculty member at Hopkins’s Berman Institute of Bioethics.
At the Tidewater affiliate, Williamson said Komen will be redoubling its efforts to educate people about the charity. “We have not done a good job at the Tidewater [Komen] affiliate,” she said.
“People here know generally about the pink ribbon and that there’s a big race somewhere,” but few of them know that 75 percent of funds raised stay in the local community, she said.
She hopes the group can make the brand stronger.
“I don’t think it’s ruined, but I do think there will be a negative effect for a short period of time,” she said. “We all need to push it back up to where it belongs.”
Staff writer N.C. Aizenman and researcher Madonna Lebling contributed to this report.
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