The repercussions of growth

In Paul Bloom’s “How to Take a Social Venture to Scale,” the Susan G. Komen Foundation is named as an enterprise that was able to effectively communicate its message in order to raise a lot of money and grow successfully. The Susan G Komen Foundation is an interesting choice to laud its success at sending out a message, since it has been criticized for a lot of different issues pertaining to the way it raises money, and what it does with the money that it raises.

It seems that when foundations such as this one grow to be as large and influential as the Susan G. Komen Foundation, they need to be cautious about what foundations they associate they interact with financially. A 2013 New York Times article entitled “Our Feel Good War on Breast Cancer” (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/28/magazine/our-feel-good-war-on-breast-cancer.html?pagewanted=all) argues that the foundation has become successful by partnering with companies that are not passionate about public health. For example, The Foundation has been criticized for partnering with fast food companies promoting unhealthy eating habits, that donate a percentage of the purchase to the Susan G. Komen foundation. While we poison our bodies eating unhealthy, chemically infused fast food, we can feel good that we also contributed to a good cause, “finding a cure” for breast cancer.

While the idea of the foundation is to find a cure, a significant amount of the funds that are raised are used for public education. People (like this one: http://butterbeliever.com/i-will-not-be-pinkwashed-why-i-do-not-support-susan-g-komen-for-the-cure/ and this one: http://lisabadams.com/2012/02/03/why-i-divorced-the-susan-g-komen-foundation-years-ago/) take issue with that. They argue that this type of education is redundant- everyone wants a cure for breast cancer, and no one wants to contract it- and that this type of “education” is really just to spread the word about the foundation in order to make a larger profit. Instead of spending money on public outreach, it could be more effective to gear that money toward actually researching for a cure. This is absolutely possible, for when the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge went viral, extra funding for research led to results (http://www.businessinsider.com/your-220-million-to-the-als-bucket-challenge-made-a-difference-2015-8). In fact, some of this public education, like persuading women to get mammograms for early detection, leads to a bigger issue. This large foundation is being supported by the companies that construct the mammogram machines (http://butterbeliever.com/i-will-not-be-pinkwashed-why-i-do-not-support-susan-g-komen-for-the-cure/). This idea causes me to wonder if this public education is not skewed in some way.

It is overall a good thing when socially innovative companies grow. It means that their product or message is making a positive disruption in the market, generally for the benefit of society. However, it also increases the cost of upkeep and self-preservation. It is at this point that the company needs to ensure that the main goal of helping people and making a positive impact stay at the forefront of the company’s mission, and remains where the majority of the funds raised are directed.