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Do Capitalists Fund Revolutions? (Pt. 2 of 2)
Via NY Transfer News Collective All the News that Doesn't Fit
ZNet - Sep 9, 2007
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=11&ItemID=13734
Part 2 of 2
Do Capitalists Fund Revolutions?
by Michael Barker
Part one of this article reviewed some of the ways by which liberal
philanthropists work to co-opt the activities of progressive groups all
over the world. This second part of the article will continue to review
the recent literature pertaining to the insidious anti-radicalising
activities of liberal philanthropists and their foundation, and
conclude by offering suggestions for how progressive activists might
begin to move beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex.
Defanging the Threat of Civil Rights
The 1960s civil rights movement was the first documented social
movement that received substantial financial backing from philanthropic
foundations.[28] As might be expected, liberal foundation support went
almost entirely to moderate professional movement organizations like,
the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and
their Legal Defense and Education Fund, the Urban League, and
foundations also helped launch President Kennedys Voter Education
Project.[29] In the last case, foundation support for the Voter
Education Project was arranged by the Kennedy administration, who
wanted to dissipate black support of sit-in protests while
simultaneously obtaining the votes of more African-Americans, a
constituency that helped Kennedy win the 1960 election.[30]
One example of the type of indirect pressure facing social movements
reliant on foundation support can be seen by examining Martin Luther
King, Jr.s activities as his campaigning became more controversial in
the years just prior to his assassination. On 18 February 1967, King
held a strategy meeting where he said he wanted to take a more active
stance in opposing the Vietnam War: noting that he was willing to break
with the Johnson administration even if the Southern Christian
Leadership Conference lost some financial support (despite it already
being in a weak financial position, with contributions some 40 percent
less than the previous year). In this case, it seems, King was
referring to the potential loss of foundation support as, after his
first speech against the war a week later (on 25 February), he again
voiced his concerns that his new position would jeopardize an important
Ford Foundation grant.[31]
Thus, by providing selective support of activist groups during the
1960s, liberal foundations promoted such groups independence from
their unpaid constituents working in the grassroots, facilitating
movement professionalization and institutionalization. This allowed
foundations to direct dissent into legitimate channels and limit goals
to ameliorative rather than radical change[32] , in the process
promoting a narrowing and taming of the potential for broad
dissent.[33] Herbert Haines (1988) supports this point and argues that
the increasing militancy of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating
Committee and the Congress for Racial Equality meant most foundation
funding was directed to groups who expressed themselves through more
moderate actions.[34] He referred to this as the radical flank effect
" a process which described the way in which funding increased for
nonmilitant or moderate groups (reliant on institutional tactics) as
confrontational direct action protests increased.[35] As Jack Walker
(1983) concludes, in his study of the influence of foundations on
interest groups, the reasoning behind such an interventionist strategy
is simple. He argues that [f]oundation officials believed that the
long run stability of the representative policy making system could be
assured only if legitimate organizational channels could be provided
for the frustration and anger being expressed in protests and outbreaks
of political violence.[36]
>From Apartheid to ~Democracy and Onwards
Moving to South Africas transition to ~democracy, Roelofs (2007)
observes that: In the case of South Africa, the challenge for Western
elites was to disconnect the socialist and anti-apartheid goals of the
African National Congress. Foundations aided in this process, by
framing the debate in the United States and by creating civil-rights
type NGOs in South Africa. In 1978 the Rockefeller Foundation convened
an 11-person Study Commission on US Policy Toward Southern Africa,
chaired by Franklin Thomas, President of the Ford Foundation; it also
included Alan Pifer, President of the Carnegie Corporation of New York.
In Eastern Europe, the 1975 East-West European Security agreement,
known as the Helsinki Accords prompted the foundations to create
Helsinki Watch (now Human Rights Watch), an international NGO for
monitoring the agreements; Rockefeller, Ford, and Soros Foundations are
prominent supporters.[37]
Roelofs (2003) also point out that in addition to coopting social
movements, foundations have played an important role in promoting
identity politics which has served to promote fragmentation between
similarly minded radical social movements.[38] Madonna Thunder Hawk
(2007) also critiques the narrow scope of most activists work:
Previously, organizers would lay down their issue when necessary and
support another issue. Now, most organizers are very specialized, and
cannot do anything unless they have a budget first. More, foundations
will often expect organizations to be very specialized and wont fund
work that is outside their funding priorities. This reality can limit
an organizations ability to be creative and flexible as things change
in our society.[39]
Stephanie Guilloud and William Cordery (2007) support such ideas, and
suggest that activist:
] work becomes compartmentalized products, desired or undesired by the
foundation market, rated by trends or political relationships rather
than depth of work. How often do we hear that ~youth work is hot right
now? Funders determine funding trends, and non-profits develop
programs to bend to these requests rather than assess real needs and
realistic goals. If we change our ~product to meet foundation
mandates, our organizations might receive additional funding and fiscal
security. But more often than not, we have also compromised our vision
and betrayed the communities that built us to address specific needs,
concerns, and perspectives. [40]
Likewise, Ana Clarissa Rojas Durazo (2007) launches a similar broadside
against multiculturalism, arguing that:
The existence of ~special and ~non-white programs emerges from the
logic of the liberalist project of multiculturalism. While there are
clear racial hierarchies structured into organizations, these programs
are developed under a multiculturalist model that renders race marginal
by heralding the primacy of culture] While culturally specific services
and programs might appear to address the injuries of racism, this
organizational strategy actually displaces race from the broader
analysis effectively ignoring the power structure of white supremacy
and the structured subjugation of people of color, which effects
countless forms of violence against women. By adding a program
ostensibly designed to serve the needs of a given community of color,
the larger organization avoids direct accountability to that community.
In other words, the organizations own white supremacy remains intact
and fundamentally unchallenged, as are the countless forms of violence
against women perpetuated by racism.[41] ...
Thus, ~culturally competent and/or multicultural organizational
structures collude with white supremacy and violence against women of
color, namely because this logic enables organizations to dismiss the
centrality of racism in all institutions and organizations in the
United States.[42]
World Social Forum: Funders Call the Tune
As a result of the lack of critical inquiry in to the influence of
liberal philanthropy on progressive organizations, liberal foundations
have quietly insinuated their way into the heart of the global social
justice movement, having played a key role in founding the World Social
Forum (WSF). Furthermore, it is not surprising that, when critiques of
the WSF are made, they tend to be met with a resounding silence by
progressive activists and their media (most of which have been founded
and funded by liberal foundations, see later).[43]
The Research Unit for Political Economy (2007) astutely observes, the
WSF constitutes an important intervention by foundations in social
movements internationally because (1) many of the NGOs attending the
WSF obtain state and/or foundation funding, and (2) the WSFs material
base " the funding for its activity " is heavily dependent on
foundations.[44] It is perhaps stating the obvious to note that more
attention should be paid to such important critiques; however, if
further critical investigations then determined that such claims were
unsubstantiated then the WSF could only be strengthened. On the other
hand, if activists collectively decided that the receipt of liberal
foundation funding is problematic " as happened at the 2004 WSF in
Mumbai " then further steps must be immediately taken to address the
issue. Yet, as the Research Unit for Political Economy point out,
although:
] the WSF India committees decision to disavow funds from certain
institutions marked a victory for the critics of the WSF, it did not
really resolve the issue. If the organizers disavowed funds from these
sources on principle (rather than merely because uncomfortable
questions were raised), it is difficult to understand why the
prohibition did not extend as well to organizations funded by them.
This left scope for the WSF to accept funds from organizations funded
in turn by Ford. Moreover, ]the bulk of the WSFs expenses are borne by
participating organizations, many of which are in turn funded by Ford
and other such barred sources.[45]
Clearly important (and concerning) questions have been raised about the
democratic legitimacy of the WSF, but most activists still remain
unaware of the existence of such well founded critiques. This is
problematic and, as Stephanie Guilloud and William Cordery (2007)
argue, although fundraising is an important component of most
organizing efforts in the United States it:
] is usually perceived by activists as our nasty compromise within an
evil capitalist structure. As long as we relegate fundraising to a
dirty chore better handled by grant writers and development directors
than organizers, we miss an opportunity to create stepping stones
toward community-based economies.[46]
However, as Dylan Rodriguez (2007) observes:
] when one attempts to engage [in] a critical discussion regarding
the political problems of working with these and other foundations, and
especially when one is interested in naming them as the gently
repressive ~evil cousins of the more prototypically evil right-wing
foundations, the establishment Left becomes profoundly defensive of its
financial patrons. I would argue that this is a liberal-progressive
vision that marginalizes the radical, revolutionary, and
proto-revolutionary forms of activism, insurrection, and resistance
that refuse to participate in the [George] Soros charade of ~shared
values, and are uninterested in trying to ~improve the imperfect. The
social truth of the existing society is that it is based on the
production of massive, unequal, and hierarchically organized
disenfranchisement, suffering, and death of those populations who are
targeted for containment and political/social liquidation-a violent
social order produced under the dictates of ~democracy, ~peace,
~security, and ~justice that form the historical and political
foundations of the very same white civil society on which the NPIC
[Non-Profit Industrial Complex] Left is based. [47]
Guilloud and Cordery (2007) believe it is better to be dissolved by
the community than floated by foundations. Indeed, they go on to
correctly state the obvious, by noting that community supported
organizations will, by necessity, have to serve the needs of democracy
because [m]embers who contribute to an organization will stop
contributing when the work is no longer valuable.[48]
Moving Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex
People in non-profits are not necessarily consciously thinking that
they are ~selling out. But just by trying to keep funding and pay
everyone's salaries, they start to unconsciously limit their
imagination of what they could do. In addition, the non-profit
structure supports a paternalistic relationship in which non-profits
from outside our Communities fund their own hand-picked organizers,
rather than funding us to do the work ourselves. (Madonna Thunder
Hawk, 2007) [49]
Given the historical overview of liberal foundations presented in this
article it is uncontroversial to suggest that liberal philanthropists "
who also support elite planning groups " will not facilitate the
massive radical social changes that will encourage the global adoption
of participatory democracy.[50] Taking a global view, James Petras and
Henry Veltmeyer (2004) argue that most funding for poverty alleviation
through NGOs also has had little positive effect and:
On the contrary, foreign aid directed toward NGOs has undermined
national decision-making, given that most projects and priorities are
set out by the European or US-based NGOs. In addition, NGO projects
tend to co-opt local leaders and turn them into functionaries
administering local projects that fail to deal with the structural
problems and crises of the recipient countries. Worse yet, NGO funding
has led to a proliferation of competing groups, which set communities
and groups against each other, undermining existing social movements.
Rather than compensating for the social damage inflicted by free market
policies and conditions of debt bondage, the NGO channelled foreign
aid complements the IFIs [international financial institutions]
neo-liberal agenda.[51]
Referring to the detrimental influence of the liberal philanthropy in
the US, Andrea Smith (2007) also observes that:
[T]he NPIC [Non-Profit Industrial Complex] contributes to a mode of
organizing that is ultimately unsustainable. To radically change
society, we must build mass movements that can topple systems of
domination, such as capitalism. However, the NPIC encourages us to
think of social justice organizing as a career; that is, you do the
work if you can get paid for it. However, a mass movement requires the
involvement of millions of people, most of whom cannot get paid. By
trying to do grassroots organizing through this careerist model, we are
essentially asking a few people to work more than full-time to make up
for the work that needs to be done by millions.
In addition, the NPIC promotes a social movement culture that is
non-collaborative, narrowly focused, and competitive. To retain the
support of benefactors, groups must compete with each other for funding
by promoting only their own work, whether or not their organizing
strategies are successful. This culture prevents activists from having
collaborative dialogues where we can honestly share our failures as
well as our successes. In addition, after being forced to frame
everything we do as a ~success, we become stuck in having to repeat
the same strategies because we insisted to funders they were
successful, even if they were not. Consequently, we become inflexible
rather than fluid and ever changing in our strategies, which is what a
movement for social transformation really requires. And as we become
more concerned with attracting funders than with organizing mass-based
movements, we start niche marketing the work of our organizations. [52]
Amara H. Perez and Sisters in Action for Power (2007) also add that:
In addition to the power and influence of foundation funding, the
non-profit model itself has contributed to the co-optation of our work
and institutionalized a structure that has normalized a corporate
culture for the way our work is ultimately carried out.[53]
Fortunately, the answers to the funding problems raised in this article
are rather simple. However, given the lack of critical inquiry into the
anti-democratic influence of liberal foundations on progressive social
change, first and foremost progressive activists need to publicly
acknowledge that a problem exists before appropriate solutions can be
devised and implemented. Therefore, the first step that I propose needs
to be taken by progressive activists is to launch a vibrant public
discussion of the broader role of liberal foundations in funding social
change " an action that will rely for the most part upon the interest
and support of grassroots activists all over the world.
Given the insidious activities of liberal foundations, the very
existence of many social justice organizations has often come to rest
more on the effectiveness of professional (and amateur) grant writers
than on skilled-much less ~radical " political educators and
organizers (Rodriguez, 2007). So now more than ever, it is vital that
progressive citizens committed to a participatory democracy work to
develop alternate funding mechanisms for sustaining grassroots activism
so they can break the insidious cycle of competition and co-optation
set up by liberal foundations and their cohorts.[54] Indeed as Guilloud
and Cordery (2007) point out, [d]eveloping a real community-based
economic system that redistributes wealth and allows all people to gain
access to what they need is essential to complete our vision of a
liberated world. Grassroots fundraising strategies are a step in that
direction. [55]
Unfortunately, raising awareness of the vexing issues raised in this
article may be harder than one might first expect. This is because in
some instances the progressive media themselves may be preventing an
open discussion of the influence of liberal philanthropy on social
change " due to their reliance (or at least good relations) with
liberal foundations. So sadly as Bob Feldman (2007) observes, [w]hen
the rare report calls attention to the possibility of foundation
influence over the left-wing media or think tanks, a typical attitude
is unqualified denial.[56] Feldman concludes:
] that organizations and media generally considered left-wing have in
recent years received substantial funding from liberal foundations.
This information alone is significant, as left activists and scholars
are either unaware of or uninterested in examining the nature and
consequences of such financing. Furthermore, although a definitive
evaluation would require a massive content analysis project, there is
much evidence that the funded left has moved towards the mainstream as
it has increased its dependence on foundations. This is shown by the
~progressive, reformist tone of formerly radical organizations; the
gradual disappearance of challenges to the economic and political power
of corporations or United States militarism and imperialism; and
silence on the relationship of liberal foundations to either politics
and culture in general, or to their own organizations. Critiquing right
wing foundations, media, and think tanks may be fair game, but to
explain our current situation, or to discover what has happened to the
left, a more inclusive investigation is needed." [57]
It is clear that the barriers to spreading the word about liberal
philanthropys overt colonization of progressive social change are
large but they are certainly not insurmountable to dedicated activists.
There are still plenty of alternative media outlets that should be
willing to distribute trenchant critiques of liberal philanthropy given
persistent pressure from the activist community, while internet blogs
can also supplement individual communicative efforts to widen the
debate. If activists fail to address the crucial issue of liberal
philanthropy now this will no doubt have dire consequences for the
future of progressive activism - and democracy more generally - and it
is important to recognise that liberal foundations are not all powerful
and that the future, as always, lies in our hands and not theirs.
References
[28] Foundation funding for social movements was for the most part
nonexistent before the 1960s, with foundation grants tending to focus
on more general issues like education. By 1970 this had changed and 65
foundations distributed 311 grants to social activists worth around $11
million.
[29] Craig J. Jenkins and Craig M. Eckert, ~Channeling Black
Insurgency: Elite Patronage and Professional Social Movement
Organizations in the Development of the Black Movement, American
Sociological Review, 51, 1986.
[30] Craig J. Jenkins, ~Channeling Social Protest: Foundation Patronage
of Contemporary Social Movements, p.212.
[31] David J. Garrow, Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr., and
the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (Random House, 1988),
pp.545-6.
[32] Frances B. McCrea and Gerald E. Markle, Minutes to Midnight:
Nuclear Weapons Protest in America (Newbury Park, Calif.: SAGE, 1989),
p.37.
[33] John D. McCarthy, David W. Britt, and Mark Wolfson, ~The
Institutional Channeling of Social Movements by the State in the United
States, In: L. Kriesberg and M. Spencer (eds.) Research in Social
Movements, Conflicts and Change (Greenwich, CT.: JAI Press, 1991),
pp.69-70.
[34] Herbert H. Haines, Black Radicals and the Civil Rights Mainstream,
1954-1970 (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1988), pp.82-99.
[35] Herbert Haines, ~Black Radicalization and the Funding of Civil
Rights, Social Problems, 32, 1984, pp.31-43.
[36] Jack L. Walker, ~The Origins and Maintenance of Interest Groups in
America, American Political Science Review, 77, 1983, p.401.
[37] Joan Roelofs, ~Foundations and Collaboration, Critical Sociology,
Volume 33, Number 3, 2007, p.497.
[38] Joan Roelofs, Foundations and Public Policy, p.44.
For more on this subject see David Rieff, ~Multiculturalisms Silent
Partner,Harpers, August 1993, pp.62-72.
Alisa Bierria (2007) points out that: All too often, inclusively has
come to mean that we start with an organizing model developed with
white, middle-class people in mind, and then simply add a multicultural
component to it. We should include as many voices as possible, without
asking what exactly are we being included in? However, as Kimberle
Crenshaw has noted, ~it is not enough to be sensitive to difference, we
must ask what difference the difference makes. That is, instead of
saying, how can we include women of color, women with disabilities,
etc., we must ask, what would our analysis and organizing practice look
like if we centered them in it? By following a politics of re-centering
rather than inclusion, we often find that we see the issue differently,
not just for the group in question, but everyone. Alisa Bierria,
~Communities against rape and abuse (CARA), In: INCITE! Women of Color
Against Violence (eds.) The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond The
Non-Profit Industrial Complex (South End Press, 2007), pp.153-4.
[39] Madonna Thunder Hawk, ~Native Organizing Before the Non-Profit
Industrial Complex, In: INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence (eds.)
The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond The Non-Profit Industrial
Complex (South End Press, 2007), p.106.
[40] Stephanie Guilloud and William Cordery, ~Fundraising is Not a
Dirty Word, In: INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence (eds.) The
Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond The Non-Profit Industrial Complex
(South End Press, 2007), p.108.
[41] Ana Clarissa Rojas Durazo, ~we were never meant to survive
Fighting Violence Against Women and the Forth World War, In: INCITE!
Women of Color Against Violence (eds.) The Revolution Will Not Be
Funded: Beyond The Non-Profit Industrial Complex (South End Press,
2007), pp.115-6.
[42] Ana Clarissa Rojas Durazo, ~we were never meant to survive
Fighting Violence Against Women and the Forth World War, p.116.
[43] Michael Barker, ~The Liberal Foundations of Media Reform? Creating
Sustainable Funding Opportunities for Radical Media Reform, Global
Media (Submitted); Bob Feldman, ~Report from the Field: Left Media and
Left Think Tanks " Foundation-Managed Protest?, Critical Sociology, 33
(2007).
[44] Research Unit for Political Economy, ~Foundations and Mass
Movements: The Case of the World Social Forum, Critical Sociology, 33
(3), 2007, p.506.
[45] Research Unit for Political Economy, ~Foundations and Mass
Movements, pp.529-30.
[46] Stephanie Guilloud and William Cordery, ~Fundraising is Not a
Dirty Word, p.107.
[47] Dylan Rodriguez, ~The Political Logic of the Non-Profit Industrial
Complex, In: INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence (eds.) The
Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond The Non-Profit Industrial Complex
(South End Press, 2007), p.35-6.
[48] Stephanie Guilloud and William Cordery, ~Fundraising is Not a
Dirty Word, p.110.
[49] Madonna Thunder Hawk, ~Native Organizing Before the Non-Profit
Industrial Complex, pp.105-6.
[50] Two of the most influential liberal foundations, the Ford
Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation, created and continue to
provide substantial financial aid to elite planning groups like the
Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission. For
example, the Ford Foundations 2006 Annual Report (p.62) notes that
they gave the Council on Foreign Relations a $200,000 grant For
research, seminars and publications on the role of women in conflict
prevention, post-conflict reconstruction and state building.
Furthermore, as Roelofs (2003, p.98-9) notes:
During the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) debate, the EPI
[Economic Policy Institute] (funded by Ford and others) made technical
objections to the models supporting the trade agreement. At the same
time, a much greater effect was produced by Ford funding to the other
side, which included grants to the Institute for International
Economics, a think tank that emphasizes the benefits of NAFTA. In
addition, ~the Ford Foundation also awarded grants to environmental
groups and the Southwest Voters Research Institute to convene forums on
NAFTA. These resulted in an alliance of 100 Latino organizations and
elected officials, called the Latino Consensus on NAFTA, which
provided conditional support for the agreement.
Also see Laurence H. Shoup, and William Minter, Imperial Brain Trust:
The Council on Foreign Relations and United States Foreign Policy (New
York: Monthly Review Press, 1977); Holly Sklar, Trilateralism: The
Trilateral Commission and Elite Planning For World Management (Boston:
South End Press, 1980).
[51 James Petras and Henry Veltmeyer, ~Age of Reverse Aid:
Neo-liberalism as Catalyst of Regression, In: Jan P. Pronk (ed.)
Catalysing Development (Blackwell Publishers, 2004), pp.70-1.
[52] Andrea Smith, ~Introduction: The Revolution Will Not Be Funded,
p.10.
[53] Amara H. Perez, and Sisters in Action for Power, ~Between Radical
Theory and Community Praxis: Reflections on Organizing and the
Non-Profit Industrial Complex, In: INCITE! Women of Color Against
Violence (eds.) The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond The
Non-Profit Industrial Complex (South End Press, 2007), p.93.
[54] Brian Tokar, Earth for Sale: Reclaiming Ecology in the Age of
Corporate Greenwash (Boston, MA: South End Press, 1997), p.214.
[55] Stephanie Guilloud and William Cordery, ~Fundraising is Not a
Dirty Word, p.111.
Making this transition may be easier than expected, because Rodriguez
(2007) suggest that the ongoing work to maintain and prospect
foundation money, combined with administrative obligations and
developing infrastructure, was more taxing and exhausting than
confronting any institution to fight for a policy change. Dylan
Rodriguez, ~The Political Logic of the Non-Profit Industrial Complex,
p.27.
[56] Bob Feldman, ~Report from the Field: Left Media and Left Think
Tanks " Foundation-Managed Protest?, p.428.
[57] Bob Feldman, ~Report from the Field: Left Media and Left Think
Tanks " Foundation-Managed Protest?, p. 445.
[Michael Barker is a doctoral candidate at Griffith University,
Australia. He can be reached at Michael.J.Barker [at] griffith.edu.au ]
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Do Capitalists Fund Revolutions? (Pt. 2 of 2)
Via NY Transfer News Collective All the News that Doesn't Fit
ZNet - Sep 9, 2007
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=11&ItemID=13734
Part 2 of 2
Do Capitalists Fund Revolutions?
by Michael Barker
Part one of this article reviewed some of the ways by which liberal
philanthropists work to co-opt the activities of progressive groups all
over the world. This second part of the article will continue to review
the recent literature pertaining to the insidious anti-radicalising
activities of liberal philanthropists and their foundation, and
conclude by offering suggestions for how progressive activists might
begin to move beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex.
Defanging the Threat of Civil Rights
The 1960s civil rights movement was the first documented social
movement that received substantial financial backing from philanthropic
foundations.[28] As might be expected, liberal foundation support went
almost entirely to moderate professional movement organizations like,
the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and
their Legal Defense and Education Fund, the Urban League, and
foundations also helped launch President Kennedys Voter Education
Project.[29] In the last case, foundation support for the Voter
Education Project was arranged by the Kennedy administration, who
wanted to dissipate black support of sit-in protests while
simultaneously obtaining the votes of more African-Americans, a
constituency that helped Kennedy win the 1960 election.[30]
One example of the type of indirect pressure facing social movements
reliant on foundation support can be seen by examining Martin Luther
King, Jr.s activities as his campaigning became more controversial in
the years just prior to his assassination. On 18 February 1967, King
held a strategy meeting where he said he wanted to take a more active
stance in opposing the Vietnam War: noting that he was willing to break
with the Johnson administration even if the Southern Christian
Leadership Conference lost some financial support (despite it already
being in a weak financial position, with contributions some 40 percent
less than the previous year). In this case, it seems, King was
referring to the potential loss of foundation support as, after his
first speech against the war a week later (on 25 February), he again
voiced his concerns that his new position would jeopardize an important
Ford Foundation grant.[31]
Thus, by providing selective support of activist groups during the
1960s, liberal foundations promoted such groups independence from
their unpaid constituents working in the grassroots, facilitating
movement professionalization and institutionalization. This allowed
foundations to direct dissent into legitimate channels and limit goals
to ameliorative rather than radical change[32] , in the process
promoting a narrowing and taming of the potential for broad
dissent.[33] Herbert Haines (1988) supports this point and argues that
the increasing militancy of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating
Committee and the Congress for Racial Equality meant most foundation
funding was directed to groups who expressed themselves through more
moderate actions.[34] He referred to this as the radical flank effect
" a process which described the way in which funding increased for
nonmilitant or moderate groups (reliant on institutional tactics) as
confrontational direct action protests increased.[35] As Jack Walker
(1983) concludes, in his study of the influence of foundations on
interest groups, the reasoning behind such an interventionist strategy
is simple. He argues that [f]oundation officials believed that the
long run stability of the representative policy making system could be
assured only if legitimate organizational channels could be provided
for the frustration and anger being expressed in protests and outbreaks
of political violence.[36]
>From Apartheid to ~Democracy and Onwards
Moving to South Africas transition to ~democracy, Roelofs (2007)
observes that: In the case of South Africa, the challenge for Western
elites was to disconnect the socialist and anti-apartheid goals of the
African National Congress. Foundations aided in this process, by
framing the debate in the United States and by creating civil-rights
type NGOs in South Africa. In 1978 the Rockefeller Foundation convened
an 11-person Study Commission on US Policy Toward Southern Africa,
chaired by Franklin Thomas, President of the Ford Foundation; it also
included Alan Pifer, President of the Carnegie Corporation of New York.
In Eastern Europe, the 1975 East-West European Security agreement,
known as the Helsinki Accords prompted the foundations to create
Helsinki Watch (now Human Rights Watch), an international NGO for
monitoring the agreements; Rockefeller, Ford, and Soros Foundations are
prominent supporters.[37]
Roelofs (2003) also point out that in addition to coopting social
movements, foundations have played an important role in promoting
identity politics which has served to promote fragmentation between
similarly minded radical social movements.[38] Madonna Thunder Hawk
(2007) also critiques the narrow scope of most activists work:
Previously, organizers would lay down their issue when necessary and
support another issue. Now, most organizers are very specialized, and
cannot do anything unless they have a budget first. More, foundations
will often expect organizations to be very specialized and wont fund
work that is outside their funding priorities. This reality can limit
an organizations ability to be creative and flexible as things change
in our society.[39]
Stephanie Guilloud and William Cordery (2007) support such ideas, and
suggest that activist:
] work becomes compartmentalized products, desired or undesired by the
foundation market, rated by trends or political relationships rather
than depth of work. How often do we hear that ~youth work is hot right
now? Funders determine funding trends, and non-profits develop
programs to bend to these requests rather than assess real needs and
realistic goals. If we change our ~product to meet foundation
mandates, our organizations might receive additional funding and fiscal
security. But more often than not, we have also compromised our vision
and betrayed the communities that built us to address specific needs,
concerns, and perspectives. [40]
Likewise, Ana Clarissa Rojas Durazo (2007) launches a similar broadside
against multiculturalism, arguing that:
The existence of ~special and ~non-white programs emerges from the
logic of the liberalist project of multiculturalism. While there are
clear racial hierarchies structured into organizations, these programs
are developed under a multiculturalist model that renders race marginal
by heralding the primacy of culture] While culturally specific services
and programs might appear to address the injuries of racism, this
organizational strategy actually displaces race from the broader
analysis effectively ignoring the power structure of white supremacy
and the structured subjugation of people of color, which effects
countless forms of violence against women. By adding a program
ostensibly designed to serve the needs of a given community of color,
the larger organization avoids direct accountability to that community.
In other words, the organizations own white supremacy remains intact
and fundamentally unchallenged, as are the countless forms of violence
against women perpetuated by racism.[41] ...
Thus, ~culturally competent and/or multicultural organizational
structures collude with white supremacy and violence against women of
color, namely because this logic enables organizations to dismiss the
centrality of racism in all institutions and organizations in the
United States.[42]
World Social Forum: Funders Call the Tune
As a result of the lack of critical inquiry in to the influence of
liberal philanthropy on progressive organizations, liberal foundations
have quietly insinuated their way into the heart of the global social
justice movement, having played a key role in founding the World Social
Forum (WSF). Furthermore, it is not surprising that, when critiques of
the WSF are made, they tend to be met with a resounding silence by
progressive activists and their media (most of which have been founded
and funded by liberal foundations, see later).[43]
The Research Unit for Political Economy (2007) astutely observes, the
WSF constitutes an important intervention by foundations in social
movements internationally because (1) many of the NGOs attending the
WSF obtain state and/or foundation funding, and (2) the WSFs material
base " the funding for its activity " is heavily dependent on
foundations.[44] It is perhaps stating the obvious to note that more
attention should be paid to such important critiques; however, if
further critical investigations then determined that such claims were
unsubstantiated then the WSF could only be strengthened. On the other
hand, if activists collectively decided that the receipt of liberal
foundation funding is problematic " as happened at the 2004 WSF in
Mumbai " then further steps must be immediately taken to address the
issue. Yet, as the Research Unit for Political Economy point out,
although:
] the WSF India committees decision to disavow funds from certain
institutions marked a victory for the critics of the WSF, it did not
really resolve the issue. If the organizers disavowed funds from these
sources on principle (rather than merely because uncomfortable
questions were raised), it is difficult to understand why the
prohibition did not extend as well to organizations funded by them.
This left scope for the WSF to accept funds from organizations funded
in turn by Ford. Moreover, ]the bulk of the WSFs expenses are borne by
participating organizations, many of which are in turn funded by Ford
and other such barred sources.[45]
Clearly important (and concerning) questions have been raised about the
democratic legitimacy of the WSF, but most activists still remain
unaware of the existence of such well founded critiques. This is
problematic and, as Stephanie Guilloud and William Cordery (2007)
argue, although fundraising is an important component of most
organizing efforts in the United States it:
] is usually perceived by activists as our nasty compromise within an
evil capitalist structure. As long as we relegate fundraising to a
dirty chore better handled by grant writers and development directors
than organizers, we miss an opportunity to create stepping stones
toward community-based economies.[46]
However, as Dylan Rodriguez (2007) observes:
] when one attempts to engage [in] a critical discussion regarding
the political problems of working with these and other foundations, and
especially when one is interested in naming them as the gently
repressive ~evil cousins of the more prototypically evil right-wing
foundations, the establishment Left becomes profoundly defensive of its
financial patrons. I would argue that this is a liberal-progressive
vision that marginalizes the radical, revolutionary, and
proto-revolutionary forms of activism, insurrection, and resistance
that refuse to participate in the [George] Soros charade of ~shared
values, and are uninterested in trying to ~improve the imperfect. The
social truth of the existing society is that it is based on the
production of massive, unequal, and hierarchically organized
disenfranchisement, suffering, and death of those populations who are
targeted for containment and political/social liquidation-a violent
social order produced under the dictates of ~democracy, ~peace,
~security, and ~justice that form the historical and political
foundations of the very same white civil society on which the NPIC
[Non-Profit Industrial Complex] Left is based. [47]
Guilloud and Cordery (2007) believe it is better to be dissolved by
the community than floated by foundations. Indeed, they go on to
correctly state the obvious, by noting that community supported
organizations will, by necessity, have to serve the needs of democracy
because [m]embers who contribute to an organization will stop
contributing when the work is no longer valuable.[48]
Moving Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex
People in non-profits are not necessarily consciously thinking that
they are ~selling out. But just by trying to keep funding and pay
everyone's salaries, they start to unconsciously limit their
imagination of what they could do. In addition, the non-profit
structure supports a paternalistic relationship in which non-profits
from outside our Communities fund their own hand-picked organizers,
rather than funding us to do the work ourselves. (Madonna Thunder
Hawk, 2007) [49]
Given the historical overview of liberal foundations presented in this
article it is uncontroversial to suggest that liberal philanthropists "
who also support elite planning groups " will not facilitate the
massive radical social changes that will encourage the global adoption
of participatory democracy.[50] Taking a global view, James Petras and
Henry Veltmeyer (2004) argue that most funding for poverty alleviation
through NGOs also has had little positive effect and:
On the contrary, foreign aid directed toward NGOs has undermined
national decision-making, given that most projects and priorities are
set out by the European or US-based NGOs. In addition, NGO projects
tend to co-opt local leaders and turn them into functionaries
administering local projects that fail to deal with the structural
problems and crises of the recipient countries. Worse yet, NGO funding
has led to a proliferation of competing groups, which set communities
and groups against each other, undermining existing social movements.
Rather than compensating for the social damage inflicted by free market
policies and conditions of debt bondage, the NGO channelled foreign
aid complements the IFIs [international financial institutions]
neo-liberal agenda.[51]
Referring to the detrimental influence of the liberal philanthropy in
the US, Andrea Smith (2007) also observes that:
[T]he NPIC [Non-Profit Industrial Complex] contributes to a mode of
organizing that is ultimately unsustainable. To radically change
society, we must build mass movements that can topple systems of
domination, such as capitalism. However, the NPIC encourages us to
think of social justice organizing as a career; that is, you do the
work if you can get paid for it. However, a mass movement requires the
involvement of millions of people, most of whom cannot get paid. By
trying to do grassroots organizing through this careerist model, we are
essentially asking a few people to work more than full-time to make up
for the work that needs to be done by millions.
In addition, the NPIC promotes a social movement culture that is
non-collaborative, narrowly focused, and competitive. To retain the
support of benefactors, groups must compete with each other for funding
by promoting only their own work, whether or not their organizing
strategies are successful. This culture prevents activists from having
collaborative dialogues where we can honestly share our failures as
well as our successes. In addition, after being forced to frame
everything we do as a ~success, we become stuck in having to repeat
the same strategies because we insisted to funders they were
successful, even if they were not. Consequently, we become inflexible
rather than fluid and ever changing in our strategies, which is what a
movement for social transformation really requires. And as we become
more concerned with attracting funders than with organizing mass-based
movements, we start niche marketing the work of our organizations. [52]
Amara H. Perez and Sisters in Action for Power (2007) also add that:
In addition to the power and influence of foundation funding, the
non-profit model itself has contributed to the co-optation of our work
and institutionalized a structure that has normalized a corporate
culture for the way our work is ultimately carried out.[53]
Fortunately, the answers to the funding problems raised in this article
are rather simple. However, given the lack of critical inquiry into the
anti-democratic influence of liberal foundations on progressive social
change, first and foremost progressive activists need to publicly
acknowledge that a problem exists before appropriate solutions can be
devised and implemented. Therefore, the first step that I propose needs
to be taken by progressive activists is to launch a vibrant public
discussion of the broader role of liberal foundations in funding social
change " an action that will rely for the most part upon the interest
and support of grassroots activists all over the world.
Given the insidious activities of liberal foundations, the very
existence of many social justice organizations has often come to rest
more on the effectiveness of professional (and amateur) grant writers
than on skilled-much less ~radical " political educators and
organizers (Rodriguez, 2007). So now more than ever, it is vital that
progressive citizens committed to a participatory democracy work to
develop alternate funding mechanisms for sustaining grassroots activism
so they can break the insidious cycle of competition and co-optation
set up by liberal foundations and their cohorts.[54] Indeed as Guilloud
and Cordery (2007) point out, [d]eveloping a real community-based
economic system that redistributes wealth and allows all people to gain
access to what they need is essential to complete our vision of a
liberated world. Grassroots fundraising strategies are a step in that
direction. [55]
Unfortunately, raising awareness of the vexing issues raised in this
article may be harder than one might first expect. This is because in
some instances the progressive media themselves may be preventing an
open discussion of the influence of liberal philanthropy on social
change " due to their reliance (or at least good relations) with
liberal foundations. So sadly as Bob Feldman (2007) observes, [w]hen
the rare report calls attention to the possibility of foundation
influence over the left-wing media or think tanks, a typical attitude
is unqualified denial.[56] Feldman concludes:
] that organizations and media generally considered left-wing have in
recent years received substantial funding from liberal foundations.
This information alone is significant, as left activists and scholars
are either unaware of or uninterested in examining the nature and
consequences of such financing. Furthermore, although a definitive
evaluation would require a massive content analysis project, there is
much evidence that the funded left has moved towards the mainstream as
it has increased its dependence on foundations. This is shown by the
~progressive, reformist tone of formerly radical organizations; the
gradual disappearance of challenges to the economic and political power
of corporations or United States militarism and imperialism; and
silence on the relationship of liberal foundations to either politics
and culture in general, or to their own organizations. Critiquing right
wing foundations, media, and think tanks may be fair game, but to
explain our current situation, or to discover what has happened to the
left, a more inclusive investigation is needed." [57]
It is clear that the barriers to spreading the word about liberal
philanthropys overt colonization of progressive social change are
large but they are certainly not insurmountable to dedicated activists.
There are still plenty of alternative media outlets that should be
willing to distribute trenchant critiques of liberal philanthropy given
persistent pressure from the activist community, while internet blogs
can also supplement individual communicative efforts to widen the
debate. If activists fail to address the crucial issue of liberal
philanthropy now this will no doubt have dire consequences for the
future of progressive activism - and democracy more generally - and it
is important to recognise that liberal foundations are not all powerful
and that the future, as always, lies in our hands and not theirs.
References
[28] Foundation funding for social movements was for the most part
nonexistent before the 1960s, with foundation grants tending to focus
on more general issues like education. By 1970 this had changed and 65
foundations distributed 311 grants to social activists worth around $11
million.
[29] Craig J. Jenkins and Craig M. Eckert, ~Channeling Black
Insurgency: Elite Patronage and Professional Social Movement
Organizations in the Development of the Black Movement, American
Sociological Review, 51, 1986.
[30] Craig J. Jenkins, ~Channeling Social Protest: Foundation Patronage
of Contemporary Social Movements, p.212.
[31] David J. Garrow, Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr., and
the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (Random House, 1988),
pp.545-6.
[32] Frances B. McCrea and Gerald E. Markle, Minutes to Midnight:
Nuclear Weapons Protest in America (Newbury Park, Calif.: SAGE, 1989),
p.37.
[33] John D. McCarthy, David W. Britt, and Mark Wolfson, ~The
Institutional Channeling of Social Movements by the State in the United
States, In: L. Kriesberg and M. Spencer (eds.) Research in Social
Movements, Conflicts and Change (Greenwich, CT.: JAI Press, 1991),
pp.69-70.
[34] Herbert H. Haines, Black Radicals and the Civil Rights Mainstream,
1954-1970 (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1988), pp.82-99.
[35] Herbert Haines, ~Black Radicalization and the Funding of Civil
Rights, Social Problems, 32, 1984, pp.31-43.
[36] Jack L. Walker, ~The Origins and Maintenance of Interest Groups in
America, American Political Science Review, 77, 1983, p.401.
[37] Joan Roelofs, ~Foundations and Collaboration, Critical Sociology,
Volume 33, Number 3, 2007, p.497.
[38] Joan Roelofs, Foundations and Public Policy, p.44.
For more on this subject see David Rieff, ~Multiculturalisms Silent
Partner,Harpers, August 1993, pp.62-72.
Alisa Bierria (2007) points out that: All too often, inclusively has
come to mean that we start with an organizing model developed with
white, middle-class people in mind, and then simply add a multicultural
component to it. We should include as many voices as possible, without
asking what exactly are we being included in? However, as Kimberle
Crenshaw has noted, ~it is not enough to be sensitive to difference, we
must ask what difference the difference makes. That is, instead of
saying, how can we include women of color, women with disabilities,
etc., we must ask, what would our analysis and organizing practice look
like if we centered them in it? By following a politics of re-centering
rather than inclusion, we often find that we see the issue differently,
not just for the group in question, but everyone. Alisa Bierria,
~Communities against rape and abuse (CARA), In: INCITE! Women of Color
Against Violence (eds.) The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond The
Non-Profit Industrial Complex (South End Press, 2007), pp.153-4.
[39] Madonna Thunder Hawk, ~Native Organizing Before the Non-Profit
Industrial Complex, In: INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence (eds.)
The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond The Non-Profit Industrial
Complex (South End Press, 2007), p.106.
[40] Stephanie Guilloud and William Cordery, ~Fundraising is Not a
Dirty Word, In: INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence (eds.) The
Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond The Non-Profit Industrial Complex
(South End Press, 2007), p.108.
[41] Ana Clarissa Rojas Durazo, ~we were never meant to survive
Fighting Violence Against Women and the Forth World War, In: INCITE!
Women of Color Against Violence (eds.) The Revolution Will Not Be
Funded: Beyond The Non-Profit Industrial Complex (South End Press,
2007), pp.115-6.
[42] Ana Clarissa Rojas Durazo, ~we were never meant to survive
Fighting Violence Against Women and the Forth World War, p.116.
[43] Michael Barker, ~The Liberal Foundations of Media Reform? Creating
Sustainable Funding Opportunities for Radical Media Reform, Global
Media (Submitted); Bob Feldman, ~Report from the Field: Left Media and
Left Think Tanks " Foundation-Managed Protest?, Critical Sociology, 33
(2007).
[44] Research Unit for Political Economy, ~Foundations and Mass
Movements: The Case of the World Social Forum, Critical Sociology, 33
(3), 2007, p.506.
[45] Research Unit for Political Economy, ~Foundations and Mass
Movements, pp.529-30.
[46] Stephanie Guilloud and William Cordery, ~Fundraising is Not a
Dirty Word, p.107.
[47] Dylan Rodriguez, ~The Political Logic of the Non-Profit Industrial
Complex, In: INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence (eds.) The
Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond The Non-Profit Industrial Complex
(South End Press, 2007), p.35-6.
[48] Stephanie Guilloud and William Cordery, ~Fundraising is Not a
Dirty Word, p.110.
[49] Madonna Thunder Hawk, ~Native Organizing Before the Non-Profit
Industrial Complex, pp.105-6.
[50] Two of the most influential liberal foundations, the Ford
Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation, created and continue to
provide substantial financial aid to elite planning groups like the
Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission. For
example, the Ford Foundations 2006 Annual Report (p.62) notes that
they gave the Council on Foreign Relations a $200,000 grant For
research, seminars and publications on the role of women in conflict
prevention, post-conflict reconstruction and state building.
Furthermore, as Roelofs (2003, p.98-9) notes:
During the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) debate, the EPI
[Economic Policy Institute] (funded by Ford and others) made technical
objections to the models supporting the trade agreement. At the same
time, a much greater effect was produced by Ford funding to the other
side, which included grants to the Institute for International
Economics, a think tank that emphasizes the benefits of NAFTA. In
addition, ~the Ford Foundation also awarded grants to environmental
groups and the Southwest Voters Research Institute to convene forums on
NAFTA. These resulted in an alliance of 100 Latino organizations and
elected officials, called the Latino Consensus on NAFTA, which
provided conditional support for the agreement.
Also see Laurence H. Shoup, and William Minter, Imperial Brain Trust:
The Council on Foreign Relations and United States Foreign Policy (New
York: Monthly Review Press, 1977); Holly Sklar, Trilateralism: The
Trilateral Commission and Elite Planning For World Management (Boston:
South End Press, 1980).
[51 James Petras and Henry Veltmeyer, ~Age of Reverse Aid:
Neo-liberalism as Catalyst of Regression, In: Jan P. Pronk (ed.)
Catalysing Development (Blackwell Publishers, 2004), pp.70-1.
[52] Andrea Smith, ~Introduction: The Revolution Will Not Be Funded,
p.10.
[53] Amara H. Perez, and Sisters in Action for Power, ~Between Radical
Theory and Community Praxis: Reflections on Organizing and the
Non-Profit Industrial Complex, In: INCITE! Women of Color Against
Violence (eds.) The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond The
Non-Profit Industrial Complex (South End Press, 2007), p.93.
[54] Brian Tokar, Earth for Sale: Reclaiming Ecology in the Age of
Corporate Greenwash (Boston, MA: South End Press, 1997), p.214.
[55] Stephanie Guilloud and William Cordery, ~Fundraising is Not a
Dirty Word, p.111.
Making this transition may be easier than expected, because Rodriguez
(2007) suggest that the ongoing work to maintain and prospect
foundation money, combined with administrative obligations and
developing infrastructure, was more taxing and exhausting than
confronting any institution to fight for a policy change. Dylan
Rodriguez, ~The Political Logic of the Non-Profit Industrial Complex,
p.27.
[56] Bob Feldman, ~Report from the Field: Left Media and Left Think
Tanks " Foundation-Managed Protest?, p.428.
[57] Bob Feldman, ~Report from the Field: Left Media and Left Think
Tanks " Foundation-Managed Protest?, p. 445.
[Michael Barker is a doctoral candidate at Griffith University,
Australia. He can be reached at Michael.J.Barker [at] griffith.edu.au ]
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