[opportune]

They actually only spend about 20% of their revenues on breast cancer research. They spend a lot of their money, about 40% of revenue, on "awareness companies" which have dubious real-world effectiveness, and can be considered a clever way for them to market themselves and fundraise without actually having to report it as such (they spend 10% on fundraising to begin with).

They're also very litigious. Of course they need to protect their brand, but in a lot of cases they are pretty objectively the bad guys. They have taken legal action against other orgs/charities using "for the cure" in their names, they've taken action against orgs/charities using "cure" and pink together.

In general I think they are more focused on self-perpetuation than curing cancer. There's a lot of reading material on how some of their corporate partnerships have been deceptive in the sense that Susan G Komen received very little directly financially, and took the opportunity as a chance to market themselves instead.

Their CEO and upper management do make a lot of money, but I don't think it's out of line for an organization their size. It's still a matter of controversy though.

[fencepost]

They probably also haven't fully recovered from their brief attempt in 2011-2012 to stop working with Planned Parenthood [1][2], which is where a large number of women get medical care such as breast exams and cancer screenings. They had a huge drop in donations following that debacle.

For the curious, Karen Handel (now R-GA6) is believed to have been the driving force behind that.

[1] https://mobile.nytimes.com/2012/11/09/giving/komen-foundatio...

[2] http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-mh-susan-g-kom...