Boobies, ta-tas, cans and bonkers, gazongas, hooters, melons and knockers.
It doesn’t matter what you call them, as long as you donate to an organization that actually uses your money to fight breast cancer.
Keep A Breast’s “I Love Boobies!” campaign and the Save the Ta-Tas Foundation have gotten significant press for the unconventional methods they use to promote breast cancer awareness. Keep A Breast sells small rubber wristbands with the phrase “i ♥ boobies” for $4, while Save the Ta-Tas sells shirts with various slogans on them, including their namesake.
Their unusual products have been banned in schools across the country for being inappropriate, using slang or disrespectful language. In some cases, the American Civil Liberties Union has gotten involved, and in Pennsylvania, a federal judge ordered one high school to allow students to wear the bracelets after two girls filed a lawsuit.
Keep A Breast argues that its bracelets “speak to young people in their own voice about a subject that is often scary and taboo.” Pink ribbons don’t always resonate with some youths, they say, but they think that their product and the festivals, art shows and surf and skate contests they hold with the earnings are capable of getting young peoples’ attentions.
The shirts and bracelets are tacky, and make light of a serious issue, but it makes kids consider a topic they might otherwise not have thought about. That’s important, as young women should begin self-screening at a young age and have a clinical breast exam every three years starting at age 20. But do they use the money they earn to further prevent breast cancer?
Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem so. The organization nets about $10 million per year just by selling bracelets and T-shirts with its slogans on them. Of that, it donated about $100,000, or 1 percent. Admirably, this money went to research and environmental programs like the University of California San Diego and California State University Fresno, but at such a small percent, donors should look elsewhere to get the most cure for their buck.
Save The Ta-Tas donates 5 percent of its gross sales to fight breast cancer, meaning they donate money even if they have to take it from their operating budget. To date, the foundation has donated over half a million dollars. But with shirts at $30 a pop, that’s only $1.50 per shirt. People who can find it in their hearts to donate money without receiving some trinket or sign that they’ve donated have better options.
Finding the right breast cancer organization to donate to can be tricky. Breasts are the most visible and obvious symbol of female sexuality, and sex sells. Billions of donated dollars have been used to dye America pink—from NFL jerseys to cans of soup—to negligible effect. Perhaps breast cancer awareness was necessary over 20 years ago, when the pink ribbon was wrought to make people mindful of the disease, but everybody knows what it is now. Money should instead be funneled to research.
But what charities will do that? With its name plastered on food products across the country, Susan G. Komen for the Cure is the most high-profile breast cancer foundation. Since 1982, it has invested almost $2 billion for breast cancer research and advocacy. But it also spent some of that money to keep its high profile position. The foundation has sued over 100 other charities for using the term “for the cure,” often running them out of business. That’s not an effective use of donor money.
Consider instead the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. It doesn’t have a sexy name or slogan, and it doesn’t put its name on yogurt containers, but it donates 90 percent of all funding, and holds an A+ rating from the American Institute of Philanthropy (Komen has a B+).
