by Karen Topakian
Chances are, few of you read the article on page 26 of the recent issue of the Chronicle of Philanthropy. The one titled, “Conservative Groups Turn To Grass-Roots Efforts To Seek New Donors.”
I have to admit, it was kind of music to my ears. The conservative group in question is the Heritage Foundation. You know, the one that brought us the “Reagan Doctrine” in the 1980s and early 1990s. According to Wikipedia, the Heritage Foundation was a key architect and advocate under which the United States government supported anti-Communist resistance movements in such places as Afghanistan, Angola, Cambodia and Nicaragua and generally supported global anti-communism during the Cold War. Heritage foreign policy analysts also provided policy guidance to these rebel forces and to dissidents in Eastern bloc nations and Soviet republics.
And we all remember and live with those failed policies.
The Heritage Foundation always had a handful of donors with big money to support them and didn’t need to go to such efforts to engage new recruits. But now they do.
It looks like they’ve taken a page out of the book many of us in the grassroots social change world use, Fundraising for Social Change, written by my good friend Kim Klein. They have created advocacy programs in 10 major policy areas and are seeking donations for those areas, they are wooing young supporters by upgrading their web pages, starting pages on Facebook and Twitter, and according to the article, they regularly send files of conservative speech and as news reports to YouTube. Wow!
I find it humorous because this is what many of us in the grassroots peace and justice world have been doing for years. I wonder if they’ll be holding a bowl-a-thon or a hosting a raffle or selling ads in an ad book any time soon?
The article ended on a funny note with a quote from a professor at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public Policy and International Affairs. “You only need 10 billionaires. And there will be 10 conservative billionaires.”
Chances are there are more than 10. But for those of us in the social change world, we know there probably aren’t 10 progressive billionaires to support our work. So instead we ask all of you to give because there’s strength in numbers.
The Heritage Foundation’s new fundraising effort, reminds me of a bumper sticker from the last millennium, “It’ll be a great day when the schools have all the money they need, and the army has to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber.”
Amen to the bumber sticker!