Cancer fighting charity Susan G. Komen for the Cure has come under intense scrutiny in recent weeks over its decision to cut funding to Planned Parenthood, and its subsequent swift reversal. Part of this media attention has been focused on founder Nancy Brinker, who reportedly billed the charity for $133,507 in expenses at a time when she had a full-time job elsewhere. According to the Daily Beast, these revelations now have many calling for her resignation.
Brinker, a socialite and former U.S. ambassador to Hungary, founded Komen more than 30 years ago and worked to build it into the cancer-fighting powerhouse it is today. But the recent negative spotlight on Komen has drawn attention to many of Brinker’s flaws, which staff members say they have been dealing with for years.
According to employee interviews conducted by the Daily Beast, Brinker is enormously successful at raising money for the charity, but frequently incurs ire by flying first class, billing Komen for five star hotels and alienating staff with her “entitled air.” Employees are expected to refer to her as “Ambassador Brinker”—not “Nancy”—for example.
All of this is at odds with the image and mission Komen wants to create, they say.
“It has all become a diversion,” said former Komen board member Eve Ellis. “It has itself become cancerous. Nancy has accomplished so much and provides so many millions in research dollars, but the foundation needs to get back to being strong. For that to happen, she needs to step down.”
Brinker—who launched the charity on behalf of her late sister, Susan G. Komen—earns more than $400,000 a year as top official at the foundation. That’s in line with pay for other directors of charities, but Brinker also held a full-time job as a federal employee for the State Department under President Bush at the time she billed Komen more than $133,000 for unnamed expenses.
“If she was paid $133,000 for expenses related to Komen while she was working full time for the federal government, that is a distinctly unusual situation,” said Rick Cohen, who analyzes nonprofit management for the journal Nonprofit Quarterly.
He added that first-class travel, which Brinker has been known to take, also adds a negative image to a charity. Former employees tend to agree.
“How many mammograms could you buy for those first-class tickets?” one asked the Daily Beast.
For now, though, they just want things to die down so they can go back to doing what the charity was founded for—raising money for the fight against cancer.
