Reactions to Michael Shuman's article

Reactions to Michael Shuman's article Why do Progressive Foundations Give too Little to too Many?
The Nation, 12 January 1998

Letters to the editor
The Nation, 23 March 1998

Checks for the 21st Century

If the mountain of mail we got in response to Michael Shuman's ‘Why Do Progressive Foundations Give Too Little to Too Many?" [Jan. 12/19] had been grants instead of letters, the left's fundraising problems would be over. Grantmakers took issue with some or all of the article; grantseekers reacted with "gratitude, relief and rage", to quote Kathy Engel of Riptide Communications. A sampling follows.

Calais, Vt.
Michael Shuman's five classic rejoinders from the foundation world wilt ring true to everyone who has ever worked to sustain a struggling- grassroots organization. But there is one fundamental reality that Shuman overlooks: While the right-wing foundations he cites are alt firmly committed to an ideologically rightist agenda, the reverse is rarely true of nominally "leftist" foundations. As long as progressive organizations serve a fragmented, traditionally charitable role, they are deemed worthy of the minimal support Shuman describes. But few of the foundations that wilt fund progressive social services, legal interventions and organizing for moderate reforms share any commitment to the fundamental restructuring of society. Fundamental social change, even when embraced by sympathetic program officers, is clearly at odds with the ideological proclivities-or class interests-of those foundations' extravagantly wealthy sponsors.
Brian Tokar

East Lansing, Mich.
The situation is even worse than Michael Shuman wrote, and more systemic. As the author of a report on national foundations told me in the eighties, "There's a fundamental difference between the founders of the conservative and the progressive foundations. The conservatives made the money themselves. They understand investment. The progressives are the grandchildren of the people who made the money. They are very short-term oriented and thus give grants that are typically small and of short duration' "
I can attest to this, having raised money from progressive foundations from 1975 to 1990. Their staff would tell me that our research and publications were outstanding. Invariably I was told, "You do great work. We sec your reports and numbers everywhere. The media attention is outstanding. But we've funded you for three years. We gave you seed money. Now that's enough". These foundations don't understand that the seed only begins the process of growth. Plants need further nourishment and tending in order to bear fruit. So our organizations start with a flourish, do good work, get members and then-facing dwindling funding-wither and die. Until progressive foundations become serious about sustained investment, the Heritage Foundations of the world will influence much of the future.
MARION ANDERSON
Employment Research Associates

New York City
Michael Shuman confuses the making of some grants to progressive groups, like his own, with the purposes of the grantmaking institution as a whole. MacArthur could hardly be called a progressive funder overall because in addition to its support for the Institute for Policy Studies, it made grants the same year to the Hoover Institution and the Olin School of Business. Only some of the Public Welfare Foundation grants Shuman identifies in Table 111 are progressive, while the Bradley grants listed are alt conservative. The conservatives he identifies are consistently ideological-the so-called progressives are not. As a result the total assets of foundations addressing progressive causes dwindles quickly and significantly from the $8 billion he asserts. Shuman is comparing eggs and oranges, especially in the absence of a definition of what constitutes a 'progressive grant.
Progressive principles argue that we do not have the conservative luxury of making policy from the top down. Real popular participation, something that conservatives need not contend with, is valued by progressives. The voice of experience, as opposed to expertise, is often absent in the shadow of the Capitol.
We at the Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation do fund a few "special issues" areas: toxics, reproductive rights, sustainable agriculture, sustainable communities and environmental activities within the metropolitan New York region. Our funds are limited and we believe that we can be more effective by being more focused. We di rect our resources to them because they reflect systemic problems whose solutions go beyond the specific issues. STEPHEN VIEDERMAN
Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation

Washington, D. C.
The Public Welfare Foundation was surprised and troubled to be cited by Michael Shuman as an example of "dangerously counterproductive" grantmaking. Anyone who knows our grantmaking knows that we do support multi-issue work and make general
support and multi-year grants. Shuman's implication that we don't use the National Network of Grantmakers' Common Grant Application is especially troubling, since we ii-ere among the first national foundations to use it-indeed, it was developed when our executive director was part of the leadership of N.N.G.
Shuman and the foundation differ on his view that real change happens only through the work of Washington-based think tanks, including the Institute for Policy Studies, with which he is associated. For fifty years, our foundation has based its grantmaking on the belief that real change starts at the grassroots, supported by regional and national organizations. Shuman failed to disclose that the foundation has turned down several requests for support from I.P.S., a fact that clearly could have influenced his views in this article.
THOMAS J. SCANLON
Public Welfare Foundation

San Diego
When, almost a year ago, I told Michael Shuman that the label "progressive philanthropy" could be misleading and misconstrued I had no idea that my speculations would only worsen the confusion evident in his Nation article. The goal of the N.N.G. is to move more money to social and economic justice causes fail types. Most of the twelve foundations Shuman labels as "progressive" because they are listed in the N.N.G. directory are included there simply because one or two of their staff have chosen to join N.N.G. as individuals, not because the institutions identify with the progressive objectives of the network.
Shuman's treatment of community organizing is patronizing. Grantmakers within N.N.G. do tend to fund democratic projects run by everyday people. Why should the academic specialists who staff think tanks be any better suited to be policy-makers than those who work tirelessly on behalf of grassroots projects around the country? Change originates at different levels and places. Foundations must be strategic in their support of community-based, regional and national organizations. No funder or think tank ever made a social movement; to the extent that they act in coalition with the grassroots, the left will be powerfully enhanced.
N.N.G. has long urged funders to give multi year, general-support grants. But I differ with -Shuman on his definition of multi-issue funding. Take for example, the environmental justice movement, which addresses the needs of poor communities of color around health, labor, work and welfare with environmental concerns such as toxics. Or, in another case, would Shuman consider the well-being of women and children a "single issue", when nearly every aspect of federal "devolution" and welfare "reform" directly affects this majority? If Shuman's suggestions for the development of progressive philanthropy are to have the impact he desires, he will have to reassess the evidence on those foundations he labels "progressive".
TERESA J. ODENDAHL
The National Network of Grantmakers

Amherst, Mass.
The Peace Development Fund just took the plunge and subjected itself to the kind of feedback Michael Shuman calls for by launching a "national listening project" to hear out grantees and activists about foundations like ours. Much of what we've learned is echoed in Shuman's critique: We need to focus on institution-building and providing support for the long haul. My list of top twenty grantees, however, would not be dominated by think tanks. Yes, @,ve need a strong policy apparatus; yes, we need to get smart about media. But not at the expense of movement building. Academies and experts can help shape the message, but it will be dead on arrival in places of power if it doesn't arise from the voices of everyday people. The conservative think tanks were playing a parlor game before the Christian Coalition came along, built a grassroots base and made them political powers. It would be the height of irony if, in trying to learn from the successes of the right, we forgot the lesson they stole from movement politics on the left. My funding list would give high priority to organizations that will pull together the thousands of activist groups under a multi-issue vision-and help break down the class, race and gender barriers that keep them balkanized.
The Peace Development Fund throws out a second challenge, this one to the National Network of Grantmakers. Help us progressive foundations come together as a community and sort this out. Without a forum for building and sustaining a momentum for systemic change, even the most enlightened foundations will still find ourselves writing checks from the margins of the twenty-first century. LINDA STOUT
Peace Development Fund

San Francisco
Michael Shuman believes that "the left is focusing much of its money on thousands of grassroots groups disconnected from one another and 'from national polities" and that national foundations "should insist that grantees be connected with larger national debates, movements and institutions". Given current practice, the consequences of this strategy are predictable: The thinking and strategizing will be done primarily by white, middle-class males. The groups based in low-income communities and communities of color that are in fact forging innovative ways to combat the right, organize a base (let's remember, the right has not just churned out ideas-it has organized people) and build coalitions, and that are absolutely committed to building a national progressive social and economic justice movement, will be starved of resources. Shuman's advice to the local groups cuts the other way: Our few national institutions and think tanks must be accountable to and consulting with the regional and local groups and their grassroots base. Our equivalent of the right's institutions and think tanks should be organized by a consortium of organizations with a base in the working class, people of color and other oppressed communities.
HOLLY FINCKE
Northern California Coalition for Immigrant Rights

Freeport, Me.
Michael Shuman has hit the nail en the head in a couple of profound ways-and missed it in one or two other respects. As a twenty-five-year veteran in the foundation philanthropy milieu, with a big foot now in the grantseeker world as well, I can report that giving away money to try to make our democratic system work for the rest of us as well as the rich and well-born is, indeed a tricky business.
People get corrupted by the appearance of power. Giving away somebody's money should breed humility, but it often breeds the reverse. Some of the best ideas
come from our ability to listen well, not from adhering to one grantmaking category or another. Fashions abound even in the world of philanthropy. These should be resisted; genuine innovation comes from discovering talent and vision in the most unlikely places-military reformers inside the Pentagon, for instance. To recognize creativity when you see it, and at the right moment, and then to put some money into a project that might make a big difference, and sometimes does, can be the most satisfying job in the world.
Shuman is en course when he notes the progressive resistance to multi-issue agendas and the smell of polities, and the need for multi year development grantmaking. He is less prescient when he fails to note that organizations like N.N.G. are made up of program officers with more or less authority, rather than grantmaking principals. People are often there without the power to make a difference.
Most important, where is the creativity or vision on the part of progressive foundations? There's a lot of handwringing about the right, but few big-picture ideas just now. The federal government is in deep disrepute. Small-scale, locally based initiatives currently hold the best hopes for rejuvenating our democracy. If this appears to take us into the realm of the right so be it. Too much money from too many foundations-both right and left-goes to propping up establishment thinking rather than exploring new ideas, whether single-issue efforts or multidimensional ones. In this fin de siècle period with a fifties feel, when the government fails us, why must most foundations, with their excessively directive procedures and an insufficient sense of smell for useful futures, also let us down?
ANNE BRODERICK ZILL
Center for Ethics in Action and Stewart R. Mott Charitable Trust

SHUMAN REPLIES

Washington, D. C.
Many thanks to the hundred-plus people who've called, e-mailed or sent notes echoing my concerns. 1 especially appreciate the critical responses from several funders, since my purpose was to engage them in serious dialogue. Surprisingly few take issue with my recommendation that progressive foundations should increasingly support groups and causes that (1) are multi-issue, (2) expand the intellectual horizons of our movement and award (3) multi-year grants (4) for general support.

One exception is Stephen Viederman, who defends his narrow funding- categories, arguing that he can be "more effective by being more focused". But as the right has shown, multi-issue funding facilitates greater focus-and more coherence in addressing- "systemic problems'-by providing more money to fewer key institutions. Several writers challenge my assessment that the top twelve progressive foundations have five times more assets than the top twelve conservative ones. They argue that I shouldn't count a foundation like MacArthur as progressive because it doesn't perform with ideological purity. Yet few of the foundations in my comparison, including the conservative ones, meet that standard. The Bradley Foundation, for example, funds the E.F. Schumacher Society's local-currency work and lots of politically neutral civic activities in Milwaukee.

Teresa Odendahl says not to count foundations listed in the N.N.G. directory, because some don't necessarily endorse its progressive agenda. But one reason executive directors join the N.N.G. and their foundations don't is to avoid higher dues. Let's include, for argument's sake, only the top twelve foundations that are institutional members of the N.N.G. and endorse its mission. The left's money advantage over the right shrinks from 5-to-1 to 3-to-1. Big deal.

Odendahl seems reluctant to acknowledge the importance of intellectual work, writing: "No funder or think tank ever made a social movement". Apparently, she never heard of the Reagan Revolution, led by the Heritage Foundation and its right-wing philanthropic supporters. Yes, some environmental justice groups are multi-issue. But what I meant by multi-issue groups worthy of greater support are those that assist all progressive issue groups, like TV and radio networks, Op-Ed services, journals, magazines and training centers.

And think tanks. Before urging foundations to reduce their paltry funding for left-leaning policy analysts, Linda Stout should consider that virtually every issue before Congress-from privatization of Social Security to the resolution to bomb Saddam Hussein-bears the fingerprints of right-wing think tanks. I'm happy to join her call that they also fund multi-issue grassroots groups. Truly progressive foundations should give balanced support to both.

Having worked for both local and national groups for the past fifteen years and having tried continually to bridge the gulf between them, I'd like to assure Holly Fincke that my plea for greater collaboration is not a secret plan for hegemony by white men in Washington. I agree that the views of the "working class, people of color and other oppressed communities" must inform such collaboration.

I never said that the Public Welfare Foundation doesn't accept the N.N.G.s common grant application, only that 75 percent of the N.N.G.-affiliated institutions don't. When Thomas Scanlon insists that his foundation makes "multi-year" grants, he means renewal is common. Public Welfare, like most progressive foundations, requires renewing grantees to jump through time-exhausting hoops year after year to reapply, remeet and await yet another agonizing decision. Of the nearly 400 major grants given by P.W. in the year I reviewed, only four guaranteed more than one year of support.

Public Welfare's turndowns of IPS's grants exerted no more "influence" on the views I expressed than more than 100 other foundations I've worked with over fifteen years. To clarify my motives: I'd much rather a foundation like Public Welfare change and strengthen the progressive movement than ever receive another penny from it for the wrong reasons.

Anne Zill is right that most progressive grantors-and, to be fair, grantees-lack the "creativity or vision" to put big ideas on the table. Big ideas rarely fit into foundations' single-issue boxes, and if funding remains unavailable for intellectual work, we're likely to continue organizing around ideas that will never win the hearts and minds of most Americans.

I agree with Brian Tokar that progressive foundations are less committed to a "fundamental restructuring of society" than are conservative foundations. My modest recommendations can't revolutionize program officers' thinking-only new and better intellectual work can do that. But such reforms might strengthen key institutions, unify organizers and thinkers, and stop wasting everyone's time with unnecessary meetings and paperwork.

Since I share Viederman's belief in "real popular participation", I'm pleased to invite any reader interested in letting progressive funders know what they think about their practices to e-mail (shuman@igc.apc.org) or call me (202-23800 1 0). I'll send you a short report card, which I will then summarize and publish in a special report. Maybe this will provide our friends in the funding community with something they've always demanded but rarely experienced-real accountability.