ACSAN OR AC-SCAM???

In a sickening misuse of well-intentioned donor funds, the America Cancer Society Action Network (ACSAN) has launched a campaign to robo-call hundreds of thousands of households in Utah calling for a tax-hike. Over 262,000 Utah households have received these annoying, pre-recorded messages. This high-spending campaign is contacting households seeking support to nearly triple Utah's cigarette tax from the current 69.5 cents to $2 per pack - the largest cigarette tax hike in the Nation's history.

To take money from people thinking it will all be spent on helping persons who face cancer, or cancer research, and instead using it to lobby for a big-government agenda is dishonest and no better than fraud or theft.

The American Cancer Society Action Network (ACSAN) was formed by the American Cancer Society (ACS) as a front organization through a legal loophole. The sole reason they did this was to allow them to engage in political activity without jeopardizing their tax-deductibility status.

These are NOT separate organizations. If you give money to ACS thinking it will only be used for charity purposes, think again! Money given by unsuspecting donors to ACS for charitable purposes is then secretly funneled through 'fees' to ACSAN. This is then used for political purposes.

Research by this blog reveals that since 2006, ACSCAN has received over $10 million from the ACS. Money that was meant to help families suffering with cancer. Money that was meant to go into life-saving research. Instead, our donations have gone to support big-government and high taxes.

The American Cancer Society was formed in 1913, and has become the worlds wealthiest "nonprofit" institution and spends almost 10% of expenses on "administration", with the Chief Executive Officer pocketing well over $600,000 annually (FYE 08/2006). Overall, less than 70% of donated funds go to any programs at all - and it's only that high because this definition includes political lobbying - only a fraction of this goes on medical research. A 1999 study in the International Journal of Health Services found that "for every $1 spent on direct service, approximately $6.40 is spent on compensation and overhead" and that "nationally, only 16 percent or less of all money raised is spent on direct services to cancer victims". By comparison, the National Cancer Coalition devotes 97% of funds to programs - where they are needed. Because of this, the American Cancer Society has one of the lowest program expense ratios of any large national charity and has come under significant criticism in recent years. America's premier independent charity evaluator, the nonpartisan, impartial Charity Navigator, gives it an efficiency rating of just one star, meaning that it "fails to meet industry standards and performs well below most charities in its Cause."

In 2005, the Phoenix New Times reported that the Arizona branch of the organization spent a gasp-inducing 95 percent on overhead costs, leaving cancer victims “only the crumbs.” At the Arizona branch, the nonprofit spends 22 times as much on paying employees, maintaining the offices, and keeping the coffee machine running than on the cancer victims they are supposedly aiming to save. The Chronicle of Philanthropy stated that ACS was "more interested in accumulating wealth than in saving lives"

We tried to look up further information on this political campaign on ACSAN at the section of their website viewed by the journalist who discovered this misuse of funds, but it seems to have since been shut down.

Unfortunately, true victims of this campaign are not the hundreds of thousands of Utah residents who will be pestered by these robocalls. Rather, they are the innocent families children and suffering the devastating effects of cancer missing out on much-needed funds.