Livestrong charity lives on after Armstrong scandal

Cancer group adjusts mission in face of drop in funding, staff

AUSTIN — After chemotherapy and four breast cancer surgeries, Kim Myers felt “so weak and so outside of myself.”

Then, during a visit to her surgeon last year, she heard about a 12-week fitness class for cancer survivors at the YMCA funded by the Austin-based Livestrong Foundation. She soon found the twiceweekly class doubled as a cancer support group.

“The program took me out of my comfort zone of fear and moved me to a place where I could be hopeful about new beginnings,” said Myers, 49, a homemaker.

Five years after the performance-enhancing drug scandal that engulfed cyclist Lance Armstrong, the nonprofit he founded that became an international phenomenon has seen its revenue decline from $46.8 million in 2011 to $6.2 million in 2015, according to an Internal Revenue Service tax form released recently.

Greg Lee, Livestrong’s president, called 2015 the “low water mark” and said the foundation’s revenue climbed to $7.9 million last year. The foundation is smaller, but the

programs at the core of its mission continue, he said.

The nonprofit group continues to fund its nationwide YMCA program, the Livestrong Cancer Navigation program, to help patients like Myers grapple with practical, physical and emotional concerns after their diagnoses. It is also committed to maintaining a 10-year, $50 million commitment to the Dell Medical Center at the University of Texas at Austin to develop full-range cancer care, from prevention to survivorship.

“We are leaner and meaner and more focused on the few things we are doing,” said Lee, who was the foundation’s chief financial officer before becoming president last year. “As a result, we are still having a terrific impact even though we have a much smaller team.”

Daniel Borochoff, president of CharityWatch, a watchdog group based in Chicago, noted Livestrong’s decline in revenue but said the foundation had a net fund balance of $75.9 million at the end of 2015.

“They have breathing room. They can ride it out. It’s the risk of being so closely associated with an individual. But on the good side, it never would have been such a big charity if it had not been for Lance’s celebrity,” he said.

High point in 2011

Founded in 1997 by Armstrong, a Dallas area native and survivor of testicular cancer, the foundation followed the cyclist’s ascent as he won seven consecutive Tour de France titles. In 2009, for example, Livestrong had $41.7 million in revenue, $28 million in expenses, and a fund balance totaling $41.9 million.

The peak came in 2011, when revenue reached $46.8 million. Its staff has dropped over the past five years from 119 to about 35.

In 2012, the U.S. AntiDoping Agency released its evidence against Armstrong that included sworn testimony from 26 people, including 15 cyclists with knowledge of Armstrong’s doping activities on the U.S. Postal Service Cycling team. Later that year, Armstrong resigned from the Livestrong board of directors.

In 2013, Armstrong said on the “Oprah Winfrey Show” that his “mythic, perfect story” was “one big lie.” After denying doping allegations for more than a decade, he said he used banned drugs or blood transfusions during all seven of his victories in the Tour de France. He was stripped of those titles.

Livestrong said Armstrong has “no involvement whatsoever” in the foundation. Through an associate, Armstrong declined comment.

Jeff Garvey, the first chairman of the Livestrong board of directors who now serves on the executive committee, said Armstrong’s doping was “beyond anything that anybody at the foundation had any control or involvement in.”

Armstrong had no choice but to resign from the foundation’s board of directors in 2012. “In the business that Livestrong is in, which is acting as a public charity, trust is everything. You lose trust and sooner or later, you go away,” Garvey said. “And so we were faced with a situation where trust was an issue, and the right things happened rather quickly.”

Since then, Armstrong has “had no involvement and there is no discussion about any involvement,” Garvey added.

Lee said the public thought the financial hit to Livestrong would be immediate in the wake of Armstrong’s scandal, but the “collateral damage” was staggered over several years as contracts ended with corporate sponsors, including Nike, Oakley and Johnson Health Tech, a fitness equipment manufacturer.

“We understood that those revenue declines were going to happen, and we made a very conscious decision to aggressively invest in the programs that were the cornerstone of what we were doing as an organization,” Lee said.

Livestrong’s Cancer Navigation program, started in 2004, is free and focuses on helping cancer survivors, caregivers and health care professionals grapple with a myriad of issues, including how to deal with insurance companies, clinical trials, and finding people who have gone through similar cancer ordeals.

Cancer Navigation is offered at 585 sites nationwide and more than 45,000 people affected by cancer have participated, Lee said.

Looking to the future

Livestrong announced its $50 million, 10-year commitment to support the Livestrong Cancer Institutes at the Dell Medical School at the University of Texas at Austin in 2014.

The goal is to “rethink the full range of cancer care from prevention to diagnosis, treatment and survivorship, all with a focus on the patient’s needs, values and preferences,” Livestrong said.

Dr. Clay Johnston, the medical school’s dean, said that Livestrong was a natural partner for the initiative and that he had no concerns about the group fulfilling its funding commitment. So far, Livestrong has paid $2.7 million.

Garvey said the biggest challenge the foundation faces is a relatively new one for the 20-year-old group — fundraising.

About a decade ago, a philanthropist referred to Livestrong as a “reverse foundation,” Garvey said.

The timing of its creation, its cause and Armstrong’s celebrity meant that the least of its challenges was raising funds — unlike nearly all other nonprofit groups, he said.

But even with Armstrong’s fall and all that financial woes flowing from the scandal, Livestrong landed its first million-dollar commitment last year since 2010 — a gift from longtime supporters Jeff and Jeri Mulder of Michigan through their nonprofit group, the Shine Foundation. And in the first three months of this year, the foundation has generated $1.7 million in revenue — 23 percent ahead of budget, the group said.

For those who work at Livestrong’s office on the east side of Austin, the nonprofit group reflects the perseverance of cancer survivors.

Aditi Narayan, the foundation’s program manager, has worked at Livestrong for five years. She started as an intern when she was pursuing her master’s degree at the UT-Austin School of Social Work.

“Every single person in this building has a personal connection to cancer, and that’s what keeps us coming back every day — that connection and our mission at Livestrong,” she said.