In defense of Susan Komen

Right now everyone in the nonprofit marketing sphere is having a group heart attack about the KFC/Komen team up and the pink buckets. For those of you who don't know what it is, essentially Susan Komen has teamed up with KFC to make these pink buckets and everytime you buy a bucket of chicken, Komen gets 50 cents for their research into breast cancer. Now everybody with even a small sense of nonprofit marketing is going off the handle about how crazy it is for Komen to team up with KFC since KFC makes fatty fried chicken. They're saying Komen has ruined their brand and alienated their supporters. To those people, I say "go fuck yourself". Yup I said it "go fuck yourself". I'm perfectly willing to be the one nonprofit marketer to stand up and say I stand by Komen and all those people out there who think that this was a terrible idea can go suck balls - deep fried greasy chicken balls

Lets have a quick thought experiment. Lets pretend you're in a hospital, you have stage 3 or 4 cancer, your waiting to have your breast cut off, and then to have months and months of radiation therapy (which I have had and can verify sucks) in conjunction with chemo therapy (which I haven't had but seen the effects of and can say pretty confidently sucks). Now while your laying there about to go under the knife, I want you to ask yourself "should komen get 1 million dollars from KFC to make sure no one ever has to go through this again?" I think your answer is going to be a resounding yes. This is isn't some fucking game, these are lives we're talking about here. It's not like Bally's is partnering with Krispy Kreme Donuts! This is an organization that has been tasked with stomping out breast cancer! It is their duty to do whatever it takes to do that.

Lets look at the facts:
1) Chicken is delicious, fried chicken is even more so.
2) Fried chicken, eaten in huge amounts, can cause all sorts of problems, ranging from greasy fingers to high blood pressure, to great big fat asses, but (and i could be wrong) none of the things they cause is breast cancer.
3) Susan komen's mission is to stop breast cancer, not stop great big fat asses. If you want to stop great big fat asses, find another organization, not Komen.

I am not saying that Komen should team up with anyone that comes knocking on the door. Teaming up with a cigarette company is not a good idea, because cigarettes cause cancer which defeats the purpose of thier organization. Chicken does not cause cancer. Yes KFC produced the double down sandwich but the double down (which is delicious I might ad) is 1) not targeted for women but targeted at 20 something men (which I happen to be) and 2) does not kill you. I ate it and I'm still here, I know women who ate it and they're still here, in fact I don't know anyone who's died from it directly, the same way people die from cancer. What people die from is eating too much of it, which is neither KFC's or Komen's fault. People have to take responsibility for their actions, including if they decide to stick a ton of friend chicken down their colossal gullets. Furthermore, there are cures for big fat asses, there is no cure for cancer!

Also, what is KFC supposed to do? Just because they make fried food (they also make grilled food and that accounts for 20% of their sales) they can't support positive causes? They can only support guns and liquor? Give me a break. I'd be pissed off it Komen passed up this chance and missed the opportunity to put another 1 million towards cancer research.

Additionally, I've heard that people are threatening to stop supporting Komen. To those person out there who is going to stop supporting Komen I say "you're an asshole". Komen is trying its best to save lives and if you're going to stop supporting them because they're taking money from an organization that makes fried chicken, then you're an ass and that's outside of Komen's control (you need to take that up with your parents and your questionable upbringing). If you don't like KFC, don't eat at KFC, tell your friends not to eat at KFC, go protest KFC, but don't stop supporting an organization that fights breast cancer because they realize finding a cure for cancer is important enough to take money from a purveyor of deep fried bits of chicken. I don't see those people bitching and whining about Komen and KFC going around and dropping off million dollar checks to Komen.

Do I think that this was the smoothest thing to do on Komen's part? No, of course not. They could have made it more under the radar, they could have positioned it as KFC making a small step to improve the lives of women, they could have partnered the brand up with KFC's healthier (though less delicious) offerings, they could have done all sorts of things to help with the brand dissonance but they didn't and now their taking flack for it. That's fine and understandable but to claim that it's the end of the world and that they shouldn't have taken the money is the same wrongheadedness that makes nonprofits think that they can't have run business and that they should feel guilty for generating income and that they need to live hand to mouth all the time. Komen did the right thing and I can only thank the great fried chicken in the sky that the nonprofit professionals out there who say that they would have taken the money aren't in control at Komen because if they were, a worthy organization would be out of a considerable amount of money and the people whose lives depend on that research would be suffering.

We have to do better,
-Cerrone