The American Cancer Society Is Desperate For Your Money
Submitted by The Stupid Cancer Blog.
A Civil Rant By Jack Bouffard
Young Adult Survivor
Hodgkin’s Lymphoma
Diagnosed, January 2008
I’m sorry to report this, but it’s happened again. Another punch in the face to me and the entire young adult cancer community, courtesy of the billion dollar, global leader in the war on cancer.
I have a friend who is an athletic coach at a local high school. Last year, Coach decided to create an event to teach the students a valuable lesson in the importance of volunteering and raising money to help others. The recipient of the funds raised at this event was the American Cancer Society and thus the Students vs. Cancer charity event was born. Last week, Coach approached me about speaking at this year’s event as a cancer survivor. I jumped at the chance and told Coach I would love to share my story as a young adult survivor to this audience of teenagers. I also offered to speak about the I’m Too Young For This! Cancer Foundation, (i2y), and pass out some Stupid Cancer promotional items and information. I then asked Coach if the powers that be would consider donating a portion of the proceeds to I2Y and, in turn, give these high school students the inspiration of knowing they helped a cancer foundation that advocates for and supports their peers, the 70,000 newly diagnosed teenagers and young adults each year sees. Lastly, I brought to Coach’s attention the fact that only $.19 of each dollar raised directly benefits the local community while the remaining $.81 goes into the American Cancer Society’s general fund.
This morning, I received the following email from Coach:
Hi Jack,
I really appreciate your willingness to help. Last year I did this event totally on my own, and at the end of it we took the cash we made and donated it to ACS (we chose that organization because the football coach has a lot of family members involved with it). This year, one of the teachers in the school asked if she could take it over. She runs the Relay for Life Chapter in our town. Unfortunately, everything is kind of out of my control now, and she is handling everything. I thought having you talk would be a really cool thing for the kids, but she informed me she already booked a guest speaker. I forwarded her your response so she could consider having you come, but she said the American Cancer Society is not interested. They responded with this:
Hi **********, unfortunately we cannot have this gentleman speak at out event, as with any keynote speaker, we must view there speech ahead of time to see that the American Cancer Society mission is incorporated in there survivorship. Mr. Bouffard’s statistics are off as well, 81 cents of every dollar donated goes to support the life saving mission of the American Cancer Society through our programs and services like Road to Recovery and Look Good Feel Better. As well, more than $7 million in grants has been awarded to 23 Connecticut researchers this year.
The ******** event was originally started in conjunction with the American Cancer Society Relay For Life, and it would not be appropriate to split the funds because of messaging and publicity that has already gone out, as well as the sponsorship that the game was earned was done so with the supporters agreeing to sponsor the American Cancer Society.
Please feel free to pass along this information to ****** and this gentleman as well. My apologies for this mishap and ill informed communications.
Thanks,
Courtney, ACS
Again, I really appreciate your interest. If it were up to me, I would have you there. I kind of regret giving up the control over this event, because I don’t even know what’s going on anymore. You are still more than welcome to come and support the event if you’d like, but I guess they are all set on a speaker. Sorry for the inconvenience. Coach *******
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WTF!!! First of all I’d like to thank Courtney at ACS for validating the statistic she credits me for having wrong. That being said I have a few questions of my own for her. I do not know who Courtney is, nor do I have her email address but I would like to address this letter to her:
Dear Courtney,
First of all I would like to commend you on completely disenfranchising my friend and all of the well intended staff and teenagers at this high school in their efforts in raising funds and cancer awareness. You have done a remarkable job in making the case that the ACS, as the global leader in the war on cancer, is not interested in collaborating with other nonprofit organizations in this fight you claim to lead. The ACS’ position was clearly heard by their noticeable absence at the LiveStrong Foundation’s Young Adult Alliance Annual Meeting last month. I attended that meeting and saw the beauty of 78 cancer nonprofits coming together, and collectively collaborating their resources, to properly support the young adult cancer community. I found it to be a slap in the face to myself and all young adults battling cancer that your organization, the global leader in the war on cancer, was absent. That being said I have a few questions for you regarding your effort to keep me away from speaking at this high school fundraising event.
What fears does the American Cancer Society have regarding my mentioning a cancer foundation that specifically supports the teenage and young adult cancer community to an audience of high school students? Is it because the ACS is ashamed lacks in age appropriate resources for these students’ peers? I can’t imagine the global leader in the war on cancer NOT informing a newly diagnosed young adult, who is looking to them to be supported age appropriately, of resources outside of what ACS has to offer. Do we not all fight for the same cause? If the ACS doesn’t have the specific support someone is looking for do they just apologize and offer them a ride to treatment? Or do you refer this patient to an organization who provides the support they are looking for?
Is it about money? Is the American Cancer Society, as a nonprofit organization, strapped for cash in a way that there’s nothing to share after a high school fundraiser? I don’t know how much money is being raised by these well intended high school students, but I would think a few hundred dollars wouldn’t be too much to share. Or is it? Let me look into this matter, because I worry the ACS might go under without ALL of the proceeds from this high school event.
Let me see. According to ACS’s 1090 filed with the IRS for 2007, net worth for your non profit was $1.6 Billion. That’s up $200 million from 2006. Looks like you had a good year! I understand your nonprofit has expenses just like the rest of us, but, looking at pages 145 and 146, did ACS really pay out $24,064,268, in compensation last year? That’s a whole lot considering it doesn’t even take into account your CEO and other executives.! I can understand why you need all of these teenager’s money. In 2007, your nonprofit spent $5.7 million just on telemarketing alone!
According to Charitynavigator.org, your CEO makes a measly $619,000 per year. Not bad for the leader of a nonprofit. Most get less than $100K. But don’t worry Courtney; I will only keep his $ 500,000+ expense account between us, because technically it’s not part of his salary. Looking further at your non profit’s report on Charitynavigator.org, I have some major concerns. The site uses a four star rating system and ACS received two out of the four stars with an overall score of 48.6. That’s a failing grade in this country. If I came home from school with a 48.6 in anything my parents would’ve grounded me for a month! Does 21.8% of ACS’ money really go to fundraising while 68.4% goes to program expenses? I understand a lot of the money is spent on anti smoking campaigns and literature, which I commend your nonprofit for, but to have 9.6% of $1.6 billion go to administrative expenses is a complete waste of money. Your non profit would be much better served by an army of volunteers, freeing up $150 million to be applied to areas of ACS that are lacking, such as young adults programs. I don’t have a financial background, but from looking at your tax return I find your organization to be quite wasteful.
I noticed your mentioned in your email the fact that $7 million was directed to research programs here in CT. I thank you for that, because to me that’s a lot of money, but learning how your $1.6 billion nonprofit spends its money I feel it could be a lot more. Also, I would like to know what these programs are and how the money is spent. I read, in 2005, ACS had income of $866 million, of which they said $121 million went towards research, (14%). I then learned only $95 million (11%) actually reached the research facilities. $26 million in salaries, retirement, etc was allocated towards their research “Programs”. Is this true? If so, I’d be ashamed to be associated with a nonprofit like this.
The last few questions I have for you, Courtney, regard your Relay for Life and Colleges against Cancer programs. How come RFL attendance continues to go down year after year and why does your $1.6 billion nonprofit set fundraising minimums? I had a college student tell me her story regarding the Relay for Life event this student spearheaded at their school. To summarize, an ACS employee called her at 2am and told this student it wasn’t in ACS’ best interest to conduct another Relay for Life at their school because they only raised $9,000. What kind of message does that send? I understand $9,000 doesn’t cover a week’s pay for your CEO, but $9,000 in the pocket of the I’m Too Young For This! Cancer Foundation more than covers one OMG Summit For Young Adults and numerous Stupid Cancer Happy Hours. Needless to say, this completely disenfranchised college has dumped ACS for I2Y and I’m sure many other colleges will follow suit if this is how the American Cancer Society raises funds.
In closing, I would like to again express my dismay in prohibiting me from addressing these teenagers at this high school event. I hope these well intended students and staff will think twice about supporting your organization in the future, knowing that the American Cancer Society, the $1.6 billion, global leader in the war on cancer, fights to gain every penny donated to the cancer cause and does everything in its power to make sure no other nonprofit infringes on their territory. Maybe you need to remove the word American from your title as you continue to prove that all cancer patients are not supported equally. Enjoy the attention your organization will receive over not sharing a few hundred bucks.
Stupid ACS.
Jack Bouffard
Young Adult Survivor
Danbury, CT
One more thing, Courtney, possession is their, not there. Maybe the ACS should invest some of their $1.6 billion to spell check your deflating emails.
