July 14, 2013 | Read Time: 5 minutes
When Susan G. Komen, the nation’s largest breast-cancer charity, announced last month that Judith Salerno, a doctor and health-care policy expert, will be its new chief executive, many officials of its local affiliates cheered.
“It’s a whole new day for Komen,” said Cati Stone, chief executive at the charity’s Atlanta affiliate. In particular, she said, she is impressed by Dr. Salerno’s current job as head of the Institute of Medicine at the National Academy of Sciences.
But others, including nonprofit experts and former donors, said Dr. Salerno is stepping into a troubled organization where she will be hard pressed to reverse fundraising losses and other problems that have plagued the charity and its founder, Nancy Brinker, for more than a year.
Lifetime Trustee
Komen alienated donors on both sides of the abortion debate when it decided in February 2012 to stop supporting Planned Parenthood and then reversed the decision a few days later after many supporters erupted in anger.
The Planned Parenthood episode led to a string of resignations at Komen headquarters in Dallas and drops in the number of people and donations supporting the organization’s fundraising races. Such losses have continued for many Komen affiliates this year. In Washington, for example, the charity’s Global Race for the Cure in May raised $1.5-million, down from $2-million in 2012 and $5-million in 2011. Contributions to the charity’s Indianapolis race also slid, totaling $1.6-million this year, down from $2-million in 2012 and $2.5-million in 2011.
The problems facing the charity have prompted calls for leadership changes.
While Ms. Brinker did relinquish her position as chief executive last year, she and another trustee, Linda Custard, retain lifetime positions on Komen’s national board. And Ms. Brinker is still a member of the board’s executive committee, which essentially runs the organization.
That could make it difficult for Dr. Salerno to establish a clear line of authority as Komen’s new chief executive, said Susan Meier, a Washington consultant who advises nonprofit boards.
Rattled by Pay Raise
The Planned Parenthood issue, however, is not the only thing that troubles Komen critics. The charity reported on its most recently filed informational tax returns that Ms. Brinker received a 65-percent pay raise in 2011.
According to those documents, in the fiscal year ending March 31, 2012, Ms. Brinker’s salary was $696,147, although officials said the salary figures were actually for calendar year 2011. The next highest paid person was Elizabeth Thompson, who stepped down in September as president. She earned $392,198.
In appointing Dr. Salerno, Komen also announced that Ms. Brinker has a new title, chair of global strategy, and said her pay would be reduced, although it would not say by how much.
The charity’s officials noted that Ms. Brinker had turned down another raise since her 2011 increase.
What’s more, she worked as an unpaid volunteer from Komen’s beginnings in 1982 until her appointment as chief executive in 2009, said Andrea Rader, a Komen spokesman, in an e-mail.
“We benchmark our executive pay against other similarly situated nonprofits, working with independent compensation consultants. Nancy’s compensation is about mid-range for similarly situated organizations and ranks below that of other cancer nonprofits, including the Breast Cancer Research Foundation and American Cancer Society.”
Nonetheless, Ms. Brinker’s pay increase rattled some people who had been longtime supporters of Komen. “I do not give money to this organization to pay it out in an obscene salary,” said Diane Redic of Dayton, Ohio, in a comment posted on an online petition calling for Ms. Brinker to step aside. The petition has drawn more than 350 signatures.
The charity has also declined to say how much Dr. Salerno, who has led the National Institute on Aging and geriatric programs for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, will earn, but her previous salary at the Institute of Medicine was $270,000.
Staying Involved
Komen has said that Ms. Brinker, in her position as chair of global strategy, will report to Dr. Salerno. But that arrangement raises eyebrows among some experts.
“I never heard of a chair reporting to the CEO,” said Mark Lipton, a professor at the New School who studies founders of charities and their successors. “If I were Salerno, I would need to see Brinker leave the board.” (To learn more about Mr. Lipton’s views, see his opinion article on Page 35.)
Dr. Salerno, however, has not insisted on that condition. Asked if Komen’s national board should adopt term limits, she told The Chronicle in an e-mail: “I am too new to the organization to have hard and fast views on specific governance issues.”
Dr. Salerno said she was optimistic that the organization was starting to recover ground lost in the past year. “Every organization goes through difficult times,” she wrote.
“The best organizations learn from those experiences and move forward, which Komen is doing.”
The charity, she added, “has made progress over the last 18 months by consistently reminding the public of the essential work that Komen does—and must continue to do—to help combat breast cancer.”
In fact, as Dr. Salerno gets started, Ms. Brinker plans to stay closely involved.
“I expect to be in contact with her often to share insights as she builds on our mission programs with our extraordinary team of Komen mission leaders,” Ms. Brinker wrote in an e-mail to The Chronicle.
Ms. Brinker said she hopes disappointed donors will resume their giving: “I hope they understand that when they don’t support Komen’s mission, they’re hurting the women and men who desperately need our help. When donations are down, we can’t fund as much research as we would like and we have to scale back on programs. I hope that these donors will return to us, because we’re the most effective organization dealing with the real-life issues that breast cancer patients face every day.”
So far, that argument hasn’t convinced everyone. Iris Dankner, a New York interior designer and breast-cancer survivor, says that she helped Komen raise millions of dollars before the Planned Parenthood controversy.
She led the New York affiliate’s race event, nearly tripling contributions to $5.7-million annually; started an annual designer show house that raised additional funds; and created Tickled Pink, another fundraising event for young women. Now she is supporting other cancer charities instead.
“Stepping down would have been a good decision,” Ms. Dankner said about Ms. Brinker. “But she’s not stepping down, she’s stepping sideways.”
