Nonprofits that Work on Democracy Issues Seek New Allies
Chronicle of Philanthropy
Nov 11, 2012
By Caroline Preston
In anticipation of what he calls a “tidal wave of assaults on the vote in 2013,” Benjamin Jealous, head of the NAACP, began to hatch a shared advocacy strategy this summer with leaders from the Communications Workers of America, Greenpeace, and the Sierra Club. Their goal: to combat laws that require new forms of voter identification and restrict early voting, as well as other proposals and court decisions that they say disproportionately affect minorities and poor people.
“This is about self-interest on a very basic level,” Mr. Jealous says of the new coalition. “Our enemies—folks who are trying to suppress the vote—are the same people who are attacking the environment.”
Mr. Jealous mentions the financial backing of such efforts by Charles and David Koch, the businessmen and conservative donors, and says that black and Latino voters are among the “most proenvironmental voting blocs in the country.”
More nonprofits need to forge coalitions, both to engage more Americans in the democratic process and for the organizations to make progress in meeting their missions, say officials at foundations and charities.
“I have no doubt that if we had the resources, it would be easy to identify 30, 40, 50 organizations in a variety of sectors that in the past haven’t been thought to be involved in money and politics but would find it a key component of their work going forward,” says Marc Caplan, senior program officer of the Piper Fund, which will give about $2.5-million this year to groups working on campaignfinance and related issues.
Says Mr. Caplan, “Any constituency that is seeing their agenda impaired or blocked by the overwhelming amount of corporate special-interest money in our system—not just campaign contributions but lobbying and public relations—should have a deep interest in this.”
Getting the Message Out
The Piper Fund is working with the group Rethink Media to create a new communications “hub” that could help nonprofits of all stripes incorporate messages about big money in politics into their communications. The grant maker is also working with networks of economic-justice and church groups and is exploring an opportunity to engage women voters who care about environmental issues.
The Arkay Foundation, a family foundation in Berkeley, Calif., decided this year to find a way to unite its grant-making programs for democracy and environmental issues to focus on money in politics, says Benita Kline, its manager.
The foundation sought proposals from organizations with plans for educating people about the connection between spending by special interests (and money spent on lobbying politicians) with efforts to roll back environmental regulations.
The Carnegie Corporation has been forging connections between grantees that help immigrants and those that work on voting rights.
This year, the foundation donated to a charity that operates a Spanish-language voter hotline; a group that provides nonpartisan voter information to youths and Latinos through smartphone applications; and the Center for Community Change, which promotes grass-roots advocacy among minorities and needy people.
“I wish more foundations would figure out how to make sure all the constituents they are trying to engage on the issues they work on were also encouraged to understand their role in democracy,” says Geri Mannion, who directs the foundation’s U.S. democracy grants program.
Grant makers ought to go further, sharing data and ideas and perhaps even developing common strategies, says Carolyn Lukensmeyer, executive director of the National Institute for Civic Discourse.
“Most national foundations have tended to work on a specific issue, whether it’s in the democracy area, the hunger area, whatever area it might be,” she says.
“The current state of our political dysfunction makes this a time that calls for a significant coordination of investments.”