Making a buck for breast cancer

"They used to call it 'female problems.' Now, you can say it: 'Yes, we're alive and we have breasts,' " Sutherland said Sunday, before taking off on the Walk for Hope at Warren G. Magnuson Park.


		Gilbert W. Arias / P-I
	Three-year-old Haley Kirtland helps hands out food donated by Associated Grocers Sunday at the Walk for Hope at Magnuson Park. The fund-raiser is one of many events this month aimed at combating breast cancer.

The Walk for Hope and other charity races and events nationwide over the weekend kicked off National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. For the past 20 years, women's charities have revved up their campaigns in October, raising money and awareness to combat the disease.

Along with them have come corporate sponsors and a proliferation of pink products targeting supporters with promises to donate part of the companies' profits or sales.

There's the $3,900 pink Cartier watch. Cartier promises to donate $30,000 from the total sales of the watch to charity.

There's the magenta George Foreman grill. The company pledges 10 percent of the $29.99 purchase price to fight breast cancer.

And there's Yoplait yogurt. The company gives 10 cents for every pink lid mailed back, last year raising $1.2 million in returned lids.

"The benefit of good cause-related marketing is that people can buy things in their everyday life," said Kit Herrod, who works with companies marketing to benefit Seattle's Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. The fight against breast cancer gives companies a way to distinguish themselves from their competitors, she said.

The fight against breast cancer has become mutually exploitative, with businesses using the cause to sell products and charities raising needed money, said Barbara Brenner, director of Breast Cancer Action, a San Francisco-based activist group.

Brenner's group asks women to "Think Before You Pink" by looking critically at cause-related marketing campaigns and giving money to organizations that help people in their own communities instead of buying special products.

Survivors and activists increasingly want to know how the millions that have been raised are being spent, whether efforts are being coordinated, and where the donations will do the most good, said Sandra Miniutti of Charity Navigator, an online reference guide that rates non-profit organizations.

"The problem is that people are given the impression that when people buy their pink ribbons or socks with pink ribbons, they think they've made a difference," said Patricia Dawson, a surgeon at Swedish Medical Center, which performs a lot of charity work for women who can't afford treatment. "I think it's unconscionable that there are women who don't have access to care or money for care and the government doesn't do anything about it."

Some products are a stretch from a charitable perspective, but if a consumer would ordinarily buy the product being marketed as "pink," any amount that goes toward breast cancer charities is good, Herrod said.

For Sutherland, herself a breast cancer survivor, awareness of the illness is what matters.

"If 5 cents is going to it, who cares?" she said. "I think that once you have it and you survive it, you're so grateful that you want to support it however you can."

In the world of cause marketing, the fight against breast cancer is one of the most lucrative for companies. Women are the most influential market group, buying about 80 percent of consumer products and making most major household decisions.

But women are more skeptical consumers than men, doing more research and asking more questions before buying, marketing consultants said. And companies can get into trouble with women by spending too much on marketing campaigns compared with what they actually give to the designated charity, said Michele Shibuya, a cause-marketing consultant since the movement took off in the 1980s. "If it's glamorous, then it automatically smacks of pure marketing."

Shibuya was at the Walk for Hope Sunday for one of her clients, Kikkoman, which has worked with the City of Hope cancer research hospital in Southern California for several years. She was in Seattle getting supporters to try the company's Pearl organic soy milk.

Shibuya said Kikkoman prefers to support the cause through advertising dollars and donating products to support events without publicizing its own involvement.

Dory Cross was one of the soy milk samplers. After her grandmother died from breast cancer 15 years ago, Cross made health changes, including adding routine exercise to her schedule and buying and eating only organic products. Soy is a huge part of her diet.

She also takes part in many cancer-awareness run/walk events and donates directly to charities she believes are making a difference.

Cross said she believes the pink promotions in October have good intentions, but she doesn't buy into them.

"I think most people see through that," she said. "Why would you buy a vain piece of jewelry when you could give that money to The Hutch?"

Miniutti said that whatever donors decide to give, it's best to give directly to the non-profits doing the most to advance causes near and dear to donors' hearts.

"There's plenty of awareness. The question is, what do we do now?" Brenner said. "The answer has to be something other than to shop."

ASKING THE RIGHT QUESTIONS

Here are some things you'll want to know about a charity or charitable product:

Is the product something you would normally buy?
How much of the proceeds or how much money is the company going to give to the charity?
Is the product or company socially responsible to your cause?
How efficiently is the charity run?
What is the charity's mission? Do its goals align with yours?

To research charities online, visit www.give.org or www.charitynavigator.org.

P-I reporter Candace Heckman can be reachedat 206-448-8348 or candaceheckman@seattlepi.com.

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