Marathon has image to fix, fast

While thousands of runners nursed sore legs and black toes Monday, Seattle Marathon officials should be feeling a different kind of pain.

In a story published Monday, Seattle Times reporter Nick Perry found that not one penny of race-entry fees collected by the Seattle Marathon Association goes to charity, even though the race names the UW Medical Center Patient & Family Housing Fund as its beneficiary. Only the money that runners choose to donate to the fund goes there.

So while last year's race brought in more than $1 million, only $12,000 (about 1 percent) went to the fund.

Shame. Shame on organizers for misleading not only the public, but the people they purport to be helping, all the while jacking up entry fees and making sure they got paid.

"I don't know if I would call it a bait and switch, but it appears to be misleading," said Michael Bisesi, director of Seattle University's nonprofit leadership program. "One percent of the total take won't be of particular 'benefit' to anyone."

And while Portland Marathon organizers take no compensation (event director Les Smith calls his 25 years at the helm "a labor of love") Seattle's organizers have tripled the amount they give employees. The 2006 tax return showed $330,000, up from $110,000 two years prior.

Some $162,000 of the 2006 take went to a for-profit company managed by race director Louise Long.

That means about one-third of the total went to administrative costs, which is "pretty high," Bisesi said. The Better Business Bureau's Wise Giving Alliance sets the standard at 25 percent.

Long told Perry that her intent "isn't to make a lot of money." She has a for-profit company and employs up to a dozen temporary staffers.

Whatever her intent, this is supposed to be an annual event that celebrates not only the city's beauty, but its wellness and its tendency toward doing good deeds.

That the marathon is sponsored by the UW Medical Center and benefits its patients and their families surely reinforced that feeling, and gave runners a small yet significant incentive to keep going over 26.2 miles of the city's streets and slopes.

Now, along with the post-race physical aches comes a vague sense of betrayal.

"If you paid your entry fee thinking that you would be helping a charity," Bisesi said, "you were not fully informed, if not misled."

Long's intent should now be to make amends — and at a sprinter's pace.

"All nonprofits have to work on is their integrity and credibility," Bisesi said. "As soon as something like this happens, people become suspicious of all nonprofit events."

So while runners recover, marathon organizers should do the same by taking a long look at their ledger, and the event's reputation.

The only thing worse than a black toe on a runner is a black eye on an organization that pledges to do good, but barely breaks the tape.

Nicole Brodeur's column appears Tuesday and Friday. Reach her at 206-464-2334 or nbrodeur@seattletimes.com.

She hopes the Lemonheads helped.