Many people were a bit surprised when the Candie’s Foundation, a nonprofit group, selected Sarah Palin’s daughter Bristol, 20, to be their national advocate against teen pregnancy. Now, the judgment of Candie’s Foundation officials has been put into even greater question with the disclosure that the nonprofit paid Palin $260,500 for this role.
Bristol’s only stand-out credential for the position appears to be that she was a pregnant teen. While the nation is full of former teen mothers who went on to great accomplishments from college to starting their own businesses, Bristol’s claim to fame was that her mother was famous (or infamous, according to one’s view).
Notably, that famous connection led to her selection as a contestant on “Dancing with the Stars” and “the lecture circuit.” What exactly does Bristol Palin lecture on and how long would it take to run out of material on the subject.
I had assumed that this role was voluntary and, while I did not view her as particularly inspirational, accepted it as a positive move for Bristol. Now I stand corrected.
My question is how donors feel about giving money to the Foundation when it forks over a quarter of a million dollars to Bristol Palin as their spokesperson. It tuns out that Candie’s Foundation officials sent only $35,000 to teen pregnancy clinics and another $165,000 on advertising during the same period. So, they spent over eight times more on Bristol Palin speaking about her teen pregnancy than they did on actual teen pregnancy clinics.
Bristol is quoted on the website as saying “”I never thought I’d be a statistic.” I am not sure what that means, but she can now add “I never thought I’d be paid over a quarter of a million dollars by a nonprofit foundation.”
Source: Yahoo
Issues that can affect teen birth rates
fertility
opportunity
birth control
media stimulation
sexual predators
peer pressure
self esteem
parents
welfare policies
first amendment
supervision
after school programs
over crowded housing — lack of control of sleeping conditions
expectations of men
child support laws
employment rates
copycat pregnancies
and probably more….
How about a talk show with Bristol Palin + Whoopi Goldberg + rotating expert (s) + teens to discuss sex in today’s society or teen sex?
Could be more factors than we think and more ways to improve the future of the next generation.
I have heard from a couple of Nurses about teens coming into the ER with mouth wart, herpes and other transmittable diseases that these young people do not consider oral sex…sex…well hell…neither did Clinton… Go Bill….
Very interesting …
The real reason for the decline in teen births
What you’re not hearing about the dip in pregnant youngsters
By Tracy Clark-Flory
The good news of the day is that the U.S. teen birth rate has fallen to a record low — but most of the mainstream reporting on the Centers for Disease Control study avoids the question of why, and a cursory glance at the coverage can easily give the wrong impression.
The most-touted fact from the report is that — relax, parents — more teenagers are waiting to have sex: The number of sexually active youngsters dropped from 54 percent in 1991 to 46 percent in 2009. At the same time, many media outlets are highlighting the fact that 12 percent of sexually active teens are getting busy without any form of birth control. Thanks to the juxtaposition of these two leading sound bites, you might get the impression that the decline has more to do with abstinence. But what’s easily overlooked is that the number of teens having sex without a form of birth control has actually dropped from 16 percent. At the same time, the percentage of youngsters using backup contraception has almost doubled. In other words: Contraceptive use is up among teens, and more are doubling up methods just to be extra safe. This, I’m sure I don’t have to tell you, is great news, and a boon for proponents of comprehensive sex education (which, by the way, also includes messages about the benefits of waiting to have sex).
The question remains, though: Do we have the rise of abstinence or the increase in contraception use to thank for the record low in teen births? It’s likely a combination of both — but note that a 2006 study examined that very question and found that contraceptive use was responsible for 86 percent of the decline in teen pregnancy. We’ll have to wait for a more detailed analysis of this latest data to get a better grasp on the factors at play — but I can already predict with confidence that the Candie’s Foundation, which paid Bristol Palin more than $250,000 as an abstinence promoter while donating only $35,000 to teen health clinics, will not be celebrated as a hero.
http://www.salon.com/life/teenagers/index.html?story=/mwt/feature/2011/04/06/teen_births
Leave it to the MSM to report all the facts, be objective and unbiased …
And Bob Marely should be the spokes person for not smoking weed….he quit didn’t he….No Drugs….
Not television ads. Bristol Palin will probably be able to get on all sorts of television talk shows. And her name is synonymous with “teen pregnancy”.
Teen pregnancy and teen sex are complicated issues. A lot of money has already been spent with no results. Bristol might be able to make a difference by discussing how and why she got pregnant.
Most teen mothers are too shy to discuss how and why they got pregnant. Bristol Palin became a public figure through no act of her own. But she handled it well I think. I don’t know everything about her but from what I know I like her. She has a lot of spunk. She may show a lot of empathy for teen issues involving teens without her financial resources too.
Bistol Palin’s mother is a voluntary public figure and she voluntarily discussed her daughter’s pregnancy. So if Bristol wants to discuss parental supervision issues her mother can’t claim that it is an invasion of her privacy. The male who got her public is also a voluntary public figure who became public by getting her pregnant. So Bristol Palin’s legal situation is unique.
I bet that Bristol Palin could also be an effective fund raiser. So if the goal is simply to reduce teen pregnancy, I think hiring her is probably a good investment.
The idea that Democrats should be opposed to anything that Bristol Palin does because she was raised Republican is not productive.
$250 K is, I think, a relatively low salary for someone who must give interviews, sacrifice privacy, and travel a lot. I hope she isn’t subjected to assassination attempts.
kay, yes 250k would buy a lot of ads…
I don’t think it was necessarily such a bad call. Bristol Palin is already famous and her interviews will get press when an interview with an ordinary teen mom would not. $250 K would not buy a lot of paid ads.
This is one reason why I never donate to a non-profit I haven’t vetted through Charity Navigator. A good charity spends 70-90% of its funds delivering a useful service; no more than 25 cents to raise a dollar, and doesn’t overpay its executives or contractors.
To be fair, the Candie’s Foundation says in its filing that its main purpose is to make and broadcast “Celebrity PSAs” pushing the abstinence message. That’s what they do, and you can’t say that’s illegitimate on its face unless you want to consider antismoking PSAs a scam, too. But Candie’s Foundation does no research to indicate whether these PSAs have any effect on the target population. (Classroom-based abstinence education programs that have been studied have been shown to be ineffective in reducing teen pregnancy.) So even if you believe in abstinence education, you’d have to be a fool to donate money to this lame pseudo-charity.
But as a means for Candie’s to associate its name with willing celebrities, ya can’t beat it! Hey, call me cynical. Oh, and their filing also indicates the CEO of Candie’s, Mr. Cole, took home over $9 million in executive compensation in 2009. I say, let him pay Bristol Palin’s fees. Anybody else who donates to this “Foundation” is being played for a sucker.
One thing more: isn’t this a neat way to curry favor with the influential Palin family? Good thing mom’s not in office right now – can’t call it bribery or a gift to a public servant. Let’s call it an investment with hope of future reward.
Good news, I hope, for Levi Johnston, though. With Bristol rakin’ it in his child support should be down to almost nuthin’.
Palin family values. Gotta love ’em. BTW, somebody in this thread mentioned Sarah’s Down Syndrome kid, Trigg. Has anybody checked to see if she’s taking government support for his special needs? Just wonderin’.
Elaine,
I saw that sad excuse for an excuse!
Bristol Palin Responds: Legally Required Nonprofit Disclosure Part Of An Anti-Palin Conspiracy
(Think Progress, 4/6/2011)
http://thinkprogress.org/2011/04/06/bristol-palin-responds-salary/
Excerpt:
Yesterday, several major news outlets reported that Bristol Palin, Sarah Palin’s celebrity daughter, was paid $262,500 for work at an abstinence nonprofit called the Candie’s Foundation. ThinkProgress reviewed the Candie’s Foundation 990 forms and found that the nonprofit spent only $35,000 in grants to health clinics and teen counseling organizations — meaning that Bristol’s salary from the nonprofit was seven times the amount spent on actual teen pregnancy prevention.
Speaking with E! Online, anonymous representatives for Bristol responded to the story. A spokesperson claimed that the Candie’s Foundation disclosure was somehow engineered by an “anti-Palin organization that says Trigg isn’t Sarah Palin’s son”:
“She shot PSAs, print and Internet ads and did town hall meetings, as well, and the money she made was an accumulation of all of that. This is not out of the ordinary for a celebrity to make an income off of a charity they represent. “If you do your research you’ll find that most nonprofits compensate their celebrity spokespeople and Bristol’s no different.” Furthermore, our Bristol source says, “this is clearly something that was leaked by the same anti-Palin organization that says Trigg isn’t Sarah Palin’s son.”
i have a teenaged daughter and she thought it was a joke when bristol did the anti-pregger commercial. she also reminded me what bristol is slang for in the u.k.
eniobob-
I take pride in the fact that I don’t know who Snooki is. However, I do know who Toni Morrison is. I would pay to see Toni Morrison speak. I just went to a web page of Snooki photos. The only thing I know about Snooki is that she owns an extensive wardrobe. I guess someone has to pay for it- might as well be Rutgers. Ya pays yer money and ya takes yer choice.
“Listen, girls, don’t be like me! If you get pregnant as a teenager, you might end up getting lots and lots of attention, appear on prime time TV, become famous, get paid money to make public appearances and have nannies help you take care of your kid!”
Yep, Bristol is sending exactly the right message to teenage girls who might be considering being less than careful about getting pregnant. Fan-freakin-tastic.
Once again, everybody but me misses the point. Look, Bristol Palin fits the bill perfectly for an “anti-teenage pregnancy” organization, she’s no longer either a teen, or pregnant.
She’s reformed.
Mike,
Then the RC bills the people they help … my in-laws were given blankets during an emergency. They had to fill out a form listing their home address. Three months later they got a bill from the RC for the blankets. My father-in-law framed it along with his cashed check and hung it on the wall. Anyone who asked about it got the whole story. It was his way of paying back the RC in full.