or
Social
Media Planning is Important. Yes It Really Is!
Years ago,
when still working as a professional bassoonist in Shreveport, Louisiana, I was
hired to perform in an orchestra and accompany a community chorus in Texarkana
as part of a fundraising event for the Susan B. Komen Race for the Cure. The
Komen Foundation was prominently mentioned in the musical parts that we
performed from as well as in the programs. It was actually a fun gig. The
chorus was enthusiastic and so was the audience. What I noticed then and later
was that the people supporting Komen, in concerts, in runs, and even corporate
sponsors, were all doing so because of the cause. Their volunteers included
people all along the political spectrum.
This week,
when AP broke the news that Komen was withdrawing funding from Planned
Parenthood, you could practically hear that bipartisanship cracking, falling
and crashing all around the nation, almost as if it were a massively loud challenge-level
of Angry Birds.
The
defunded organization, Planned Parenthood, will likely be noted in future
textbooks on social media on the adroit way they responded to the news. (After
all, they had had over a month to plan.) They deplored the politicization of
the granting process by the world's largest breast cancer foundation and also
announced a fund-drive to replace that money along with a lead gift from a
previously little known foundation. All of sudden the social media were alive
with the debate. People began raising money on Twitter, Facebook and elsewhere.
News organizations reported on grass roots efforts to raise money, which climaxed
in a $250,000 pledge from Mayor Bloomberg of New York City, who announced that
funding for breast cancer should not be political.
The Komen
Foundation was silent for nearly two days, after which the group's founder and
CEO, former Ambassador Nancy G. Brinker was seen, alone and looking unhappy, on
her website's video, and later in news interviews. First she was saying that
Planned Parenthood didn't meet their criteria because they were involved in a
Congressional investigation. Later that story changed somewhat and it was a
decision based on metrics and proving outcomes based on the amount of money
given and patients served.
But Ms.
Brinker wasn't served well by former supporters, nor by former critics.
Anti-abortion groups were quick to crow about the apparent defunding of Planned
Parenthood. Early in the week, Americans United for Life President and CEO, Dr.
Charmaine Yoest, (who in her press releases and news interviews showed she
cannot say the words "Planned Parenthood" in any sentence without
adding the words "abortion," "death" or
"killing") was one of the first to crow about the decision. There was
no doubt of moral victory on her part, even when Ms. Brinker was trying to convince
others it was merely a matter of funding criteria.
Clearly,
Ms. Brinker and her foundation were surprised by the public and media reaction.
Even though they repeatedly stated that uterine politics were not involved,
other evidence was piling up to suggest otherwise.
We also
learned, from postings on another pro-life website, LifeNews.com, that Komen
had blocked funding to five cancer research centers last November because of
their support of embryonic stem cell research. The defunding was in the amounts
of $3.75 million to Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, $4.5 million
to the University of Kansas Medical Center, $1 million to the U.S. National Cancer
Institute, $1 million to the Society for Women’s Health Research, and $600,000
to Yale University. These were amounts far higher than Planned Parenthood's
gifts, but had barely, if ever, been mentioned by the media. However, other
schools (including Penn State, which is now definitely under investigation,
although not for its cancer research) retained their funding.
We also
learned that Komen had, last April, hired Karen Handel as senior vice president
for public policy. Previously, Ms. Handel had run for the Republican nomination
for Governor of Georgia on a pro-life platform and had then announced she was
against any government funding of Planned Parenthood. Ms. Brinker later stated
that Ms. Handel had no involvement in the decision, but it's pretty clear that
she must certainly now be involved in the culture at Komen.
Also, the
Think Progress website, http://thinkprogress.org, announced
that former press secretary and prominent right-wing writer and speaker, Ari Fleischer
"was secretly involved in the Komen Foundation’s strategy regarding
Planned Parenthood. Fleischer personally interviewed candidates for the
position of 'Senior Vice President for Communications and External Relations'
at Komen last December."
With all
due respect to Think Progess's scoop, to anybody who knows Dallas's
philanthropic and business community, the fact that a former Bush White House
conservative is involved with a Dallas-based charity is pretty much a non-news
item. What would have been controversial is if a liberal Democratic
Yankee had been hired to do the same thing.
In the
meantime, the comments on Komen's web pages, their Facebook pages, on Twitter,
and in the media kept coming in, including people who were Komen activists (and
apparently at least one or two directors of Komen chapter offices),
passionately disagreeing with the foundation's actions.
Finally,
Ms. Brinker threw in a towel of sorts. She announced that they will revise the
criteria under which Planned Parenthood chapters were denied funding to include
only real, legal investigations (rather than those apparently fake, political
Congressional ones). The news media announced that it was a reversal of their
earlier stance, although it probably, really wasn't. No funding was restored.
The change is only that the same people who had applied before can still apply
again. Of course, Planned Parenthood hardly needed the money now. As the result
of their campaign, they had raised over $3 million in three days. That was more
than four years worth of Komen Foundation donations.
That this
decision would please nobody was immediately apparent. Liberals and moderates,
who felt Komen was bowing to political pressures from the Right to Life
community were hardly mollified. Those who opposed Planned Parenthood and
abortions felt betrayed or just blamed the liberals.
An AP/Wall Street Journal article quoted
Tony Lauinger, state chairman for Oklahomans For Life, "We were very happy
to see (Komen) discontinue funding to Planned Parenthood."…. "For an entity ... that's trying to
prevent breast cancer across the world, it's directly counterproductive that
the organization would be giving funds to Planned Parenthood, which is the
largest provider of abortions in the country."
Eric
Scheidler, executive director of the Chicago-based Pro-Life Action League, sent
out emails and social media messages Friday aimed at "tens of
thousands" of abortion foes, urging them to withhold donations to Komen. Days
earlier, when the original decision was reported, he'd urged people to donate
to Komen.
Americans
United for Life’s Charmaine Yoest grudgingly admitted that Planned Parenthood
had done a better job with social and press media, saying that it was “unfortunate
that the Komen Foundation had come under vicious attack from Planned Parenthood
as part of a media-savvy campaign.” In her own release, she continued,
"This week we have all been witness to highly partisan attacks from
pro-abortion advocates and an ugly and disgraceful shakedown that highlights
Planned Parenthood’s willingness to pursue a scorched-earth strategy to force
compliance with their pro-abortion agenda."
Clearly,
lest there be any doubt, Dr. Yoest does not like Planned Parenthood.
In contrast,
the most gracious language appeared to come from Planned Parenthood's own
Cecile Richards, who thanked Komen for their "reversal" and hoped the
two organizations will continue to work together in the future. Of course, it's
much easier to be conciliatory when you've won the public debate and also
raised $3 million in a few days.
The fact
that media emphasized many of the good things that Planned Parenthood has done,
and that the various other health services that they provide are worthwhile and
supported by millions of women, and the fact that they raised so much money,
will stick in the craw of many pro-life organizations' supporters.
There's one
other aspect of Planned Parenthood's media blitz that will continue to gnaw at
and anger pro-life groups, like Dr. Yoest's supporters. When Planned Parenthood
complained that the breast cancer research was being politicized, they committed
the unforgivable sin of being right.
If there is
a somewhat sympathetic figure in this whole tempest, it might be Nancy Brinker
of Komen. She founded the organization in 1982, after the death of her sister
by breast cancer. It's easy to assume that her quest to cure breast cancer is personal,
passionate, sincere, a life-long pursuit, and above politics. For thirty years,
the foundation became famous for its ability to mobilize people and grew into
one of the largest and most visible cancer groups in the world. Whether she
became the victim of the anti-abortion crowd surrounding her, or whether she
lead the change is unknown and may never be known.
Meanwhile,
the Komen Foundation staff and board may need to go to some clinic (other than
Planned Parenthood) and have their ears checked. Their lack of anticipation of
how their policy changes would be seen in the social media, and their tone-deaf
non-response for a long time after the issue became public, was truly unprofessional
and inexcusable.
What is
likely, though, is that Komen's future races might be more lightly attended,
the pink ribbons a little less prominent, some corporate sponsors may be a bit
harder to find, and donations from long-time supporters may decline. If they
are made up by new donations of pro-life groups, that may be small consolation
for a group that used to be seen as above politics and focused only, solely, on
a mission to defeat a deadly disease.
That is
indeed sad.
Tags: Komen, Planned Parenthood, cancer, politics, abortion, pro-life, pro-choice
