Komen group will close its Memphis-area office
Recently gave out $400K in health care grants
Susan G. Komen Memphis-midsouth Mississippi will close its local office April 2 as part of a national restructuring by the breast cancer research and awareness group.
The restructuring, announced in April 2020, is closing some 38 affiliate offices including the local office in Germantown. The group’s national headquarters in Dallas will direct activities in a move it says will strengthen “advocacy and investment in research, while focusing on connecting to patients in a more direct, personal way.”
Komen Memphis-midsouth recently distributed $400,000 to area philanthropies and medical clinics.
The nonprofit agency’s popular annual Memphis foot race, the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure, apparently will continue this fall. The tentative race date earlier was set for Oct. 28, according to the group’s website.
Elaine Hare, head of the Germantown office, released a statement saying the Dallas headquarters last April “announced they would consolidate the entire affiliate network into a centralized nonprofit. There will be only one organization with centralized fundraising and operations.”
“Komen will continue the fight against breast cancer,” Hare’s statement says, “with their focus on leading research, strong advocacy, support with the improved 1-877-Go Komen line, and an increase in funding for their Treatment Assistance Program which provides financial assistance (at this time a one-time gift of approximately $300.00) to a person who is currently in treatment and has annual income at or below 250% of the poverty level.”
Hare, in an email, said the local agency once employed five people in Germantown and three in Jackson, Mississippi, and is down to two in Germantown and one in Jackson.
With the restructuring, Hare said, the officials in Dallas “will manage all aspects of the transformed organization including programs, services, fundraising, marketing, technology, and accounting. Komen moved out of their corporate offices last year and everyone on staff works remotely .... The new direction in delivery no longer includes giving local cash grants to hospitals, cancer centers, or clinics to subsidize health care for the uninsured or underinsured.”
The nonprofit organization, officially named Susan G. Komen, was founded by Nancy Brinker to bring national awareness and scientific research to the breast cancer that in 1980 claimed the life of her sister, Susan Goodman Komen. Annual revenues for the group some years exceeds $70 million.
Brinker stepped down as head of the agency in 2009. The organization’s current chief executive is Paula Schneider, former chief executive of Los Angelesbased retail chain American Apparel.
“Knowing that our health care funding would be coming to an end,” Hare’s statement says, “we worked hard and ran lean to earn as much as we could to give one last gift to our community health care partners.”
Recent awards totaled about $400,000 for groups including:
Baptist Memorial for Women: $96,450
Baptist Memorial - Desoto: $19,175 h Baptist Memorial - Booneville, Columbus, New Albany, Oxford: $43,200
Baptist Memorial – Memphis Breast Health Baptist Medical Group: $18,032
UHESS - A Carin’ Touch: $ 5,400
Church Health: $18,360
Tishomingo Health Services: $2,700
Methodist Healthcare Foundation: $62,078
Alliance Charitable Healthcare Foundation: $14,400
Columbus-lowndes Free Medical Clinic: $4,005
Jennie & Isiah Davis Foundation – STAARS: $5,400
Tennessee Department of Health Breast Screening & Treatment: $12,600
Regional Medical Center of Memphis: $25,200
Mississippi State Department of Health/breast and Cervical Cancer Program: $18,000
Baptist Health Center, Baptist Foundation, Jackson, Mississippi: $10,000
Gulfport Memorial Foundation: $10,000
Southwest Mississippi Opportunity: $5,000
Delta State University: $5,000
Mary Bird Perkins: $10,000
Southeast Mississippi Rural
Health Initiative: $10,000
Kings Daughters Mississippi: $5,000
Komen Dallas research: $135,000.