Its the holidays...where will your gift giving dollars go?

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday of the year (besides my birthday, which I feel should be a national holiday). But immediately after Thanksgiving, we push right into the Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa season. The time of year where we shift our focus to gift giving and making people smile... by thanking them for all that they've been to you throughout the year.

Sooo... let me take a quick moment to say that as you're thinking of charities and organizations to give money to as we close out the year... please be sure to do some research and be sure that the organization you send your money to actually spends the money on what they say they will.

Pink for breast cancer is big business. I'd love to say it differently but the truth is that the pink ribbon campaign is a major PR and marketing campaign. Personally, I love the campaign more than I'm disturbed by it. Pink has been one of my favorite colors all of my life. I love the girly-ness of it, the various shades often reflect the varying feelings of femininity that I have at any given moment. From red-hot sexiness of hot pink and fuchsia... to the laid back giggle of soft baby pink... I LOVE PINK. So, like I said... sporting pink things to support breast cancer does not bother me at all.

But what does bother me is that a lot of organizations (large and small) use the promise of pink to unfairly influence consumers into believing that they are far more benevolent than they actually are. There has been a recent brouhaha about the "I Love Boobies" group's actual spending of the money that they have raised from selling their very popular bracelets. ("I love boobies", Huffington Post)

This organization, like many others, only claims to RAISE AWARENESS about the disease. They do donate some of their proceeds to a breast cancer fund but it is not a huge amount in the grand scheme of what they have earned from the production of these bracelets. Again, personally, I'm not upset or angry at what they've done. They haven't actually lied to the public about their intentions. But... that's the rub when it comes to spending money on items that are "pink for the cure"... many of us believe that the money we spend is actually going to help some woman (or man) directly who is struggling with the disease. Sadly, that is rarely the case.

More often than not, these companies use the money to make a nominal donation to an organization which then usually spends the money on indirect ways of supporting the disease. Maybe they make donations to research organizations, or they support groups whose main objective is to teach others about the disease. Both of these things are good... but they may not be what you had in mind when you made your purchase or sent in your donation.

As a survivor, I'm just grateful and thrilled that people care enough to want to help. And that's honest. But I want all of us to be really careful about where we send our support and be sure to do a little work to be sure that we are clear where our money is going and what it is supposed to do.

Everything that's pink will not directly help a sister with breast cancer. So, be sure to read the fine print and know where your money is going. And if you're really concerned and want to help directly, try contacting your local breast cancer center at a local hospital... if they don't take donations, they will know what organizations need funding for low cost or free mammograms and other such direct assistance.