Last semester, I interned with Pretty in Pink, a nonprofit foundation whose mission is to help those diagnosed with breast cancer receive treatment, even if they have little or no health insurance.
The ladies who started the nonprofit were changing and saving lives, but there was one problem — money.
I was put off after learning that several grant proposals made by the director of Pretty in Pink were rejected. It is a sad case, but not unheard of among grassroots nonprofit organizations.
After all of the hard work that goes into running Pretty in Pink – and similar organizations — it receives gratitude in return — but you can’t pay bills or fund operations with gratitude.
Fundraising can only take small nonprofits so far, and government funding is hard to come by — and the grants they do earn don’t exactly fill their purses. More often than not, small organizations are overlooked when it’s time to dole out grants, but they are the ones who need it most.
I was curious to see what the government had funded, so I took to Google. According to a list of federally funded programs, Indian Arts and Crafts Development received $1.052 million in grants. Indian Arts and Crafts. Development. A program “to encourage and promote the development of American Indian and Alaska Native arts and crafts.”
Meanwhile, last September Wrightsville Beach Magazine reported that Pretty in Pink has raised a little more than $1.5 million in a decade and a half. Mind you, that sum is comprised of federal grants and fundraising initiatives.
The government gave a little more than $1 million to promote something that we all did in elementary school for playtime. I know that this type of “craft creating” is probably a bit more complex then gluing un-cooked macaroni to a paper plate, but it angers me to think the money given to that cause could have been given to a nonprofit company whose mission is to save lives.
Obviously, I have nothing against preserving culture, and I especially have nothing against American Indian and Alaska Native people, but I just can’t help but feel that small nonprofits are getting the short end of the (Elmer’s glue) stick.
It saddens me to step back and look at which industries thrive in our country.
The nonprofit world is struggling, yet the “adult movie” world is thriving. According to Forbes, it pulls in around $750 million in revenue a year. A woman working in that industry pulls in between $100,000 and $300,000 on average, much more than the salaries of directors of small non-profits.
I personally do not think there is anything wrong with being involved in the adult movie industry — to each their own. But do we care more about the sexualization of breasts than the women to whom they belong?