Damariscotta’s Making Strides Against Breast Cancer Walk steps off from the parking lot of The First on Damariscotta’s Main Street this Sunday at 2 p.m.
If you have never experienced the walk, we encourage you to take it in. It can be a joyful, triumphant event, albeit arising from a somber purpose.
October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Breast cancer opponents have done a magnificent job making theirs the cancer cause célèbre, but with all due respect to those who have been impacted by that specific disease, we assert cancer is cancer.
Some forms are worse than others, but all of them are bad news and, unfortunately, a great deal of research for many languishes for the lack of funding.
Many people, particularly those who haven’t been directly impacted by the disease, limit their fighting cancer to forking over a few dollars to a fundraising co-worker and calling it good, which is perfectly acceptable.
However, as you donate, we encourage you to look for the bottom line.
With considerable disgust earlier this month, we noted ESPN reporting the National Football League’s fundraising campaign against breast cancer is almost entirely show. Each October, the NFL makes an annual production out of draping its product in pink, but according to ESPN, and others, very little of the money gained from the sale of pink accessories, which the league peddles to fans as a fundraiser, actually makes it to the research.
According to ESPN, for every $100 in pink merchandise sold, $12.50 goes to the NFL. Of that, $11.25 goes to the American Cancer Society and the NFL keeps $0.25. The remaining $87.50 is divided up by the manufacturer and the retailer, most often in this case, the league and the individual teams.
Not specific to the NFL, but according to Business Insider, only 71.2 percent of money the American Cancer Society receives goes toward research and cancer programs.
Now it is a pointless exercise to look to a sports league for civic and moral leadership, but we highlight this particular hypocrisy just to make the point that it is easy to talk a good game about being socially conscious, but it does little good if, after marketing, salaries, and overhead, mere pennies of every donated dollar actually make their way to the cause.
For the curious, there are several websites that have make it their business to traffic in this information: www.charitywatch.org, www.charitynavigator.org, and www.givewell.org are three that come highly recommended. There are others.
If you can’t find the information you seek, ask. If the organization can’t or won’t answer your questions in a timely manner, hold your money, but not to worry.
There will always be another worthy cause.
