SUSAN G.
KOMEN FOR THE CURE® HONORED AS MOST VALUED NON-PROFIT BRAND, TOP
RANKED FOR TRUST, CHARITY PEOPLE ARE MOST LIKELY TO DONATE TO
Despite Tremendous Honor, Progress, Work is “Far
from Done,” Founder and CEO Says
DALLAS – March 8, 2010 – Top rankings for
brand value, trust, and the charity people are most likely to donate
to, affirm the strength of the 28-year promise of Susan G. Komen for
the Cure®: the world’s largest breast cancer organization:
to save lives and end breast cancer forever.
The 2010 rankings of non-profit organizations from global
market research firm Harris Interactive last week ranked Komen for the
Cure as the number one most valuable non-profit brand and the charity
people are most likely to donate to. Komen also ranked second among
the most trusted non-profit organizations in America (behind St. Jude
Research Hospital). The rankings examined 1,151 organizations.
“We are enormously humbled to be recognized in
this way by the public that we serve,” said Komen founder and
CEO, Ambassador Nancy G. Brinker. “This validation redoubles our
resolve to our promise to end breast cancer through science, education,
advocacy and relevant support programs all around the world.”
Harris Interactive Senior Vice President of Public Affairs,
Justin Greeves, said of the top-performing non-profits: “They
are working to solve many of society's most complex and relevant problems
in efficient, new, and innovative ways and have achieved personal relevance
in many of our lives - that is why they are at the top."
Brinker founded Komen in 1982 after promising her sister,
Susan G. Komen, that she would do everything she could to end breast
cancer. Susan G. Komen died of breast cancer in 1980 at the age of 36,
after a three-year battle with the disease.
Since then, through its signature Susan G. Komen Race
for the Cure® series and corporate business partnerships, Komen
has built a grassroots organization supported by and serving millions
of women and men on five continents. Komen’s nearly $1.5 billion
investment in research and community program funding to date has led
to five year survival rates of 98 percent for breast cancers that haven’t
spread from the breast, along with breakthrough treatments that are
helping people live longer with the disease.
Komen makes it a priority through its global network
to ensure that women and men are educated about this disease, they have
access to treatment, and that they and their families are supported
through a diagnosis. Through Komen’s 125 global Affiliates, the
organization has provided more than $500 million in research and $900
million since inception to education, screening and treatment programs
in thousands of communities. In 2009 alone, Komen funded nearly 500,000
breast screenings and reached 4 million women with breast health education
messaging, while investing $60 million into breast cancer research worldwide.
The organization also partners with governments and
advocacy groups in 50 countries to raise breast health awareness and
provide treatment and support, particularly in countries where medical
resources and knowledge about the disease are scarce. Komen has funded
almost $40 million in international research and outreach since inception.
“Our work is enormously gratifying, but it is
far from over when more than 1.3 million and men will be diagnosed with
breast cancer and almost 500,000 will die - just this year,” Brinker
said.
As a Global Goodwill Ambassador to the U.N.’s
World Health Organization and recipient of the Presidential Medal of
Freedom, Brinker has called on U.S. and global health leaders to make
cancer control a global health priority.
This year, Komen will invest another $50-$60 million
into research, with about $20 million targeted to cancer vaccines and
other cancer prevention strategies. Brinker also has launched a campaign
to explore more cost-effective screening for women’s cancers,
and is an outspoken advocate for screening and access to treatment for
cancer patients in the United States.
“Our ongoing mission is to attack breast cancer
on all fronts - in science, prevention, education and advocacy for people
with the disease, and to do so on a global scale,” Brinker said.
“We’ve made tremendous progress to this point, but there
is so much more to do.
With the ongoing support of our friends, volunteers,
partners and advocates, we will continue to hold ourselves to very high
standards so that we can continue to earn the public’s trust in
our mission to end suffering from this disease, forever.”