Susan G. Komen for the Cure may have popularized the color pink as a universal symbol of breast cancer fund-raising. But these days, many of the breast cancer foundation’s local affiliates are singing the blues.


Registered attendance or donations have declined by more than 25 percent at some of the group’s recent Race for the Cure events, according to interviews with officials at 10 of the national nonprofit’s local affiliates.


Although the group’s race season is just getting started, the early returns indicate that local affiliates, a mainstay of Komen’s fund-raising operations, are struggling to recover after a public outcry in February forced the national Komen association to rescind a controversial decision that would have curbed financing for breast health programs by Planned Parenthood.


The continuing turmoil in the group, including a spate of resignations at the local and national levels, as well as a recent study indicating a steep decline in the brand’s status, is further unsettling affiliates.


“It is a symptom of an underlying pattern,” Jaimie Leopold, the executive director of Komen’s Southern Arizona affiliate said of the Planned Parenthood episode. “I’m hopeful the organization can learn from it.”


Leslie Aun, Komen’s national vice president of communications, said the group had heard people’s concerns and taken them to heart. As a result of the controversy, she said, Komen was reviewing its entire grant-making process and seeking to give its affiliates a greater role.


“Komen’s leadership team and board of directors are deeply committed to making sure that we avoid missteps like this in the future,” Ms. Aun wrote in an e-mail on Tuesday. Ms. Aun subsequently resigned from Komen, effective May 11.


But the very strengths that enabled Komen to become the world’s most prominent breast cancer nonprofit played a role in its recent stumble, corporate governance experts said. Nancy G. Brinker, the group’s charismatic founder and chief executive, built Komen into a pink powerhouse, thanks to an army of dedicated local volunteers and donors. Yet when the national headquarters decided to make a policy change that would have prevented affiliates from financing Planned Parenthood programs, it left those local chapters out of the loop, according to interviews with Komen affiliate officials.


“To a certain extent, we did not feel we were controlling our own destiny, which was unfortunate,” said David Egan, the co-executive director of the Komen Minnesota affiliate.


Likewise, corporate governance experts say, the insider culture at Komen’s headquarters, with national executives and board members deeply loyal to Ms. Brinker, discouraged independent efforts.


“They are too insular,” said Daniel Borochoff, the president of CharityWatch, a watchdog group that rates nonprofit organizations.


Through Ms. Aun, Ms. Brinker declined to be interviewed.


The heart of Komen’s fund-raising effort is its grass-roots network of 122 United States affiliates, which collectively stage 135 races annually. Now, affiliate leaders say, they are trying to restore the group’s reputation in their own communities by explaining how they finance local programs to serve local health needs. It is a strategy that distinguishes affiliate activity from the actions of the national group.


Under Komen’s franchise-like model, affiliates operate as independently incorporated nonprofits but must abide by the national group’s policies. Affiliates can spend up to 75 percent of their net income on local programs — like breast cancer screening — of their own choosing. The other 25 percent goes to the national Komen organization, where it is used to finance scientific research grants.


Some affiliates publicly objected in early February after the national headquarters tried to implement a new policy that would have prohibited the local chapters from financing programs by organizations under government investigation. The policy change threatened 19 Planned Parenthood programs that had received grants from Komen affiliates. Although Planned Parenthood was not the subject of an official investigation at the time, a Republican congressman, Cliff Stearns of Florida, was looking into whether the group had spent public money on abortions.


Having failed to anticipate a backlash among affiliates and the public, Komen headquarters compounded the problem, local officials said, by acting too slowly to apologize and reverse course.


It did not help that there were few independent voices inside Komen headquarters, affiliate leaders said. At the time, Ms. Brinker’s son, Eric Brinker, was a member of the national board of directors. Meanwhile, Ms. Brinker’s cousin Mark Solls was working as Komen’s interim general counsel, according to his profile on LinkedIn.


Mr. Borochoff of CharityWatch said that Komen lacked perspective on itself — a condition he called “founder’s syndrome.”


“Because they have gotten so large and so important,” he said, “they need to let go of the reins and open up the board to other people in the women’s health arena who could offer new life to the organization and a certain independence.”


Eric Brinker relinquished his seat on the board last month, to make way for a board member to be chosen from among affiliate executives.


Ms. Aun said that Mr. Solls’s temporary appointment as a consultant was consistent with Komen policy. Komen has recently hired a new general counsel who is scheduled to start in June, she said.


In interviews, executives at Komen affiliates said they had been working hard to woo back supporters. But in some cities, the Planned Parenthood episode still remains a live issue.