Wisconsin joins lawsuit against allegedly fraudulent cancer charity

WISCONSIN (CBS 58) -- Wisconsin has joined nine other states and the Federal Trade Commission in a lawsuit against a cancer charity.

State attorney Josh Kaul made the announcement Tuesday, saying donors who contributed to Cancer Recovery Foundation International, also known as Women's Cancer Fund, were deceived. 

The Wisconsin Department of Justice says the Women's Cancer Fund collected more than $18 million from donors between 2017 and 2022, but only about a penny from every dollar actually was used to support women undergoing cancer treatments. 

The suit claims the money was instead used to pay for-profit fundraisers and pay the charity's leader, Gregory Anderson.

“Obtaining charitable donations under the guise of helping those in need and then using only a minuscule portion of those funds for the charitable purpose for which they were intended is shameful,” said Attorney General Josh Kaul. “Those who solicit charitable donations must use the money they raise appropriately.”

According to the DOJ, while Women’s Cancer Fund collected $18 million from tens of thousands of donors, it only spent $194,809 on financial support to cancer patients. At the same time, it paid Anderson $775,139 – nearly four times as much as Women’s Cancer Fund collectively gave to all the cancer patients it supported.

In addition to his salary, the DOJ says Anderson used donated funds for hotels and travel. Meanwhile, Women’s Cancer Fund "gave the vast majority of the funds it collected from donors, about 85%, to for-profit fundraisers that Anderson hired to make deceptive pitches on behalf of the supposed cancer fund."