Susan G. Komen for the Cure reversed its decision to cut funding for Planned Parenthood and apologized for casting "doubt upon our commitment to our mission of saving women's lives," Komen founder and CEO Nancy Brinker said Friday.

In the face of growing pressure, the nation's top fundraiser in the fight against breast cancer said it would revise the new policy under which it had barred funding for Planned Parenthood.

Komen, acknowledging that the week has been "deeply unsettling," said that it would "continue to fund existing grants" for Planned Parenthood and that the group would be eligible for future grants. The group had been blocked from funding because it is under congressional investigation.

"We have been distressed at the presumption that the changes made to our funding criteria were done for political reasons or to specifically penalize Planned Parenthood. They were not," Brinker said in a statement.

Planned Parenthood said it raised $3 million in reaction to Komen's cutoff of $680,000, receiving the pledges from 10,000 donors. In an indication of the ferocity of the abortion debate, Planned Parenthood vowed that the $3 million will be used exclusively for breast screening services.

Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood, said during a conference call, "It's quite clear that Planned Parenthood and our health centers and our doctors are eligible now to work with the Komen foundation again. I certainly take them at their word." She acknowledged, however, that she had not spoken with the foundation's leaders.

Richards said that she was grateful for Komen's decision and that the experience of the last few days could strengthen the relationship between the two groups, particularly at the community affiliate level.

Paula Gianino, president of Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri, was thrilled to hear the news, even though local Planned Parenthood affiliates have never received grants from Komen.

"The outpouring of support and the anger about the original decision was a crystal-clear statement that people in this country do not want politics getting in the way of lifesaving cancer care and screening for women," she said. "The public's reaction the last few days, which was unprecedented, said that they know that Planned Parenthood is a trusted provider of primary cancer screening services."

During the last 48 hours, Gianino said, patients, supporters and even people who have never been served by or contributed to Planned Parenthood have been calling expressing their support.

"They were calling and tell me they were writing checks," she said.

Planned Parenthood of St. Louis provides breast exams to about 7,000 women each year. It was denied a Komen grant to buy breast self-exam shower cards several years ago and, according to Gianino, the Komen organization has discouraged it from applying for grants ever since.

Janet Vigen Levy, spokeswoman for the St. Louis Komen affiliate, said the reversed decision will not change the way it has been doing business.

"They have not been a grantee; they have not applied in 10 years," she said. "If anyone would apply for a grant, they would all be treated the same way. We have a grant process in place with a group of anonymous grant reviewers who look over applications."

Komen, based in Dallas, faced a torrent of backlash in recent days from critics, including some of its own affiliates, who said the foundation had caved to anti-abortion forces. Many took to Twitter, Facebook and other social media to voice their complaints.

Planned Parenthood is the subject of a congressional investigation into whether it illegally used federal money to pay for abortions. The group denies improper use of funds, but many anti-abortion groups praised Komen for cutting off funding to Planned Parenthood.

But now, Komen said, groups will be disqualified from receiving funding only if they are under investigations that are "criminal and conclusive in nature and not political."

"That is what is fair and right," the foundation said.

Brinker, meanwhile, reached out to Komen's affiliates across the country Friday afternoon in a conference call.

Laura Farmer Sherman, executive director of the San Diego affiliate, said after the call that Brinker "realized that this has been a political storm of hurricane magnitude and that we are not a political organization."

However, there was a counter-reaction from people who supported the Komen organization's original decision to cut off Planned Parenthood. Douglas R. Scott, Jr., of Life Decisions International, said Komen should have anticipated a backlash once word of its funding cutoff plans became public. The charity, Scott said, "has either engaged in a nasty ruse ... or it is led by the most naive people on earth."

Mike Paul, president of MGP & Associates, a New York-based reputation management firm, said Komen will have to build up trust as a result.

Komen was the most valuable nonprofit brand in the world, according to a 2010 report by Harris Interactive, a New York-based market research firm. "People wanted to be associated with every single thing they did," Paul said. "And now we hear politics and policy has influence."

Cindy Billhartz Gregorian of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report.