The Magical World of Cancer Charities

Donating to cancer research has gotten messy. While huge amounts of money are collected in the name of cancer research, there is little in the way of specific due dilligence to the donor as to what actually happens to their money after it's been donated. Not knowing what happens to one's money doesn't seem to be a deterrent though, and every year the same donors ante up.  Often, it is the family of the cancer victim that donates to cancer fundraisers, I suspect somehow believing that this act of charity will miraculously,  a) bring back their lost loved one, b) accelerate finding a cure for cancer, or c) fund worthy-appearing efforts to do further research on cancer that may result in a cure.  Historically, we've seen no evidence for any of the latter.

Considering that science has spent the last seventy or so years looking for a cure for any of the various forms of cancer, and that there, in all honesty, hasn’t been a single major breakthrough in actually finding a cure of any real consequence in all of that time, there is nothing to suggest that anything will happen anytime soon -- although the media arm of Medicine, inc., would love to keep your hopes up

So when you give $100 to a cancer fund, or you pay to enter and run a 5K to help raise money to find a cure for cancer or to raise awareness about the devastation that cancer causes individual patients, their families and the broader community -- how is your money actually used?

For starters, it's probably being used to pay off the infrastructure of the organization that has put together the fundraiser.  Just for openers, those at the top usually get big salaries.  For example, previous American Cancer Society CEO, John Seffrin, earned a annual total compensation package of $856,442 as head of the American Cancer Society, in addition to an annual salary of $77,859 as president of the ACS Cancer Action Network, the nonprofit, nonpartisan advocacy affiliate. Hardly money well spent on finding a cure for cancer.

Does anyone remember getting a follow-up accounting notice as to exactly how, and how effectively, their donation is being used to find a cure for cancer?   I think not.  The ACS, I suspect, is counting on the  strong emotional reactions that typically overwhelm the family that has lost a loved one to cancer, or the general heightened fear, long circulating in our society, about the threat of a cancer diagnosis.  The donation process seems to have evolved into a kind of penance drop box where one can purge one's anger, sorrow, fear and angst regarding the cancer demon by just plunking down a few coins,  no questions asked, your money is atonement enough! Once the donation is made, it is expected that there will be catharsis enough not to pursue the little niggly things like what the money is actually being used for.

So, then, how effectively is your cancer donation being used to the end in which you intended?  The real answer will be the same one that has come from the medical research community for the past seventy years: your hard-earned donation will have bought no major breakthroughs . . . but, don't worry, there's promise on the horizon, yessiree Bob.  Are we ready to ask real questions yet?  I suspect not, probably because the warm-and-cuddly feel-good  that has accompanied those 5K runs, charity events, and fundraisers for cancer research are payback enough for the donation -- as ethereal as they might seem in the face of the sordid reality.