Foundations Are Searching for Ways to Fix an Ailing Political Process
Chronicle of Philanthropy
Nov 11, 2012
By Caroline Preston
As Robert Gallucci settled into his job as president of the John D. and Catherine
T. MacArthur Foundation, he quickly became dismayed by how much his old
home of Washington, where he’d spent a long career as a foreign-policy expert,
followed him to Chicago.
Virtually every problem the MacArthur foundation tried to tackle would find itself
snarled by inaction in the nation’s capital, says Mr. Gallucci, who joined the
philanthropy in 2009.
Take America’s fiscal situation. MacArthur paid for a big study by the National
Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Public Administration that
raised alarms about the mounting national debt and proposed a variety of
solutions. But deficit talks have stalled in Washington.
So Mr. Gallucci became one of a handful of foundation leaders who are
investigating how to use philanthropy to help, as he calls it, “strengthen
democracy.”
“I think we are in trouble as a country, and I don’t think that’s hyperbolic,” he
says.
But, he adds, “I want you to know I am not depressed. There are ways of
improving the situation.”
Spurred by concerns about big money in politics, infringements on voting rights,
a shrill and divisive political climate, and the failure of a polarized Congress to
pass legislation on a range of issues, philanthropies including the William and
Flora Hewlett Foundation and the Omidyar Network are also exploring what kind
of a difference they could make in the political process.
They join other foundations that have been working on such issues for years,
including the Joyce Foundation, Open Society Foundations, and the Rockefeller
Brothers Fund.
Renewed Interest
“Funders are beginning to recognize that you can’t really advance a wide range
of goals or get things done right now in Washington because of the system of
money and politics,” says John Kowal, vice president for programs at the
Brennan Center for Justice, a think tank and public-interest legal group that
received a $500,000 grant from MacArthur this year. “I’m excited that funders are
beginning to come back into this field.”
That said, the number of foundations trying to strengthen democratic institutions
and engage more people in politics remains small, and grant awards tend to be
modest. Solutions can seem elusive, requiring long-term commitments with little
hope of immediate payoff.
Efforts to staunch the flow of money in politics have appeared hopeless to many
in the wake of the 2010 Supreme Court decision that overturned limits on
corporate and other outside political spending, known as Citizens United. (The
Center for Responsive Politics estimated that spending on the presidential and
Congressional elections this year reached $6-billion.)
A few donors that backed groups working on campaign-finance issues in the last
decade, like the Carnegie Corporation and Pew Charitable Trusts, have stopped.
The tone of the just-completed presidential election has hardly augured a new
era of bipartisanship.
Given these challenges, some nonprofit leaders and grant makers see a need to
forge new coalitions and engage groups focused on the environment,
immigration, labor, and other issues to mobilize voters and call attention to the
influence of big spending in politics. They also say that foundations need to
collaborate more.
Partisanship Concerns
Meanwhile, some philanthropy observers criticize foundation involvement in
voting and campaign-finance issues altogether, saying the work is overly political
and could cause them scrutiny from the news media.
“Just because the causes you care about can be shaped most immediately by
political engagement doesn’t mean you take your foundation, your 501(c)(3)
status, and apply it to politics,” says William Schambra, a Chronicle columnist
and director of the Hudson Institute’s Bradley Center for Philanthropy and Civic
Renewal.
Many foundation leaders disagree, saying their grants are not partisan, and they
advance their missions of ensuring that less-fortunate Americans have a brighter
future.
The MacArthur foundation has contributed roughly $7-million since April to
nonprofits that are trying to reduce barriers to voting, educate lawmakers about
public financing for elections, and related efforts.
The grants have included $300,000 for the Advancement Project’s Voter
Protection Program, to ensure that minorities are treated fairly in elections, and
$1.8-million to the Aspen Institute’s Congressional Program, which promotes
discussions by politicians from both parties on a variety of issues.
While that work is important, Mr. Gallucci says he’s not persuaded that the
foundation’s grants so far add up to a “winning strategy to strengthen our
republic.” So he’s been holding off-the-record dinners with journalists, scholars,
and policy experts—he declines to say who—in order to shape a more ambitious
approach.
One idea that’s bubbled up: free television airtime for leading political candidates,
so money does not play as big a role in determining which candidates’ voices are
heard.
Rise of Ideologies
Officials of the Hewlett and Omidyar philanthropies declined on-the -record
interviews for this article, saying they are still planning their strategies.
Hewlett’s new president, Larry Kramer, has spoken about his concern that
ideologies, not facts, are shaping public discourse and policymaking.
In 2011, Omidyar hired Joe Goldman, a veteran of nonprofit civic engagement
groups, to lead its new Democracy Fund. The fund’s initial grants include a twoyear, $800,000 commitment to the National Institute for Civic Discourse, a group
formed in the wake of the 2011 shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, a Democrat
from Arizona.
The organization will be working with members of Congress, the public, and the
news media to study and try to overcome “hyperpartisanship” in politics and in
the public discourse, says its executive director, Carol Lukensmeyer.
Since 2007, Omidyar Network has also supported the Sunlight Foundation
through a grant program focused on government transparency. The Sunlight
Foundation uses technology tools to reveal spending by corporations and other
special-interest groups and how that spending influences policy.
Legal Strategies
Some foundations are also trying to directly stem the tide of campaign spending.
After curtailing its grants for campaign-finance issues in the middle of the last
decade, the Open Society Foundations resumed such giving following Citizens
United. The philanthropy is supporting the Corporate Reform Coalition, a network
of groups that are trying to tighten state disclosure requirements for corporate
campaign spending.
It is also investigating how to support a legal strategy to overturn Citizens United,
says Thomas Hilbink, a senior program officer at Open Society.
That effort might be modeled on the legal movement that eventually led to Brown
vs. Board of Education, the 1954 Supreme Court decision that abolished
segregation in schools.
“There are few issues that are more fundamental to an open society than being
sure the electoral and governing systems are open to all sectors of society,” says
Mr. Hilbink.
In addition, the foundation is supporting the Piper Fund, a grant maker that raises
donations, in its efforts to educate lawmakers and the public about alternatives to
the direct election of judges.
Out-of-state donors poured money into efforts to unseat state Supreme Court
judges in Iowa and Florida who voted to uphold same-sex marriage and
President Obama’s health-care law. Advocates say that changing the way
justices are chosen would reduce the role of big money in judicial decisions.
Meanwhile, some foundations are pressing forward on efforts to increase voter
turnout. They say this work is particularly urgent now because of tightened voter
identification laws in more than 10 states, and an expected decision by the
Supreme Court to hear a case challenging a provision of the 1965 Voting Rights
Act.
The Carnegie Corporation gives about $5-million per year to ensure that more
Americans have access to the ballot. This year, for example, it gave $100,000 to
the Nonprofit Voter Engagement Network for efforts to ensure that more socialservice groups sign up people to vote when they register for disability assistance,
food stamps, and other aid.
The Ford Foundation has supported voter-turnout projects since the 1950s and
this year committed roughly $20-million, says Maya Harris, its vice president of
democracy, rights, and justice.
The fund is increasingly supporting new technology that can help engage voters.
For example, Ford gave $300,000 to a group called Fight for the Future for a new
application that would let people use Facebook to encourage their friends to vote.
“Our view is that democracy is stronger when everyone participates in the publicpolicy decisions that impact their lives and when all voices are heard, including
the most vulnerable and marginalized,” says Ms. Harris.
Measurement Challenge
A heightened focus by foundations on measurable results poses challenges for
democracy work, say some experts.
“It’s harder to apply very tight metrics to improving our democracy than to how
many meals have been served in a homeless shelter,” says Miles Rapoport,
president of Demos, a think tank.
Case in point: The Joyce Foundation, which gives about $3-million a year to
reduce the influence of money in politics, shifted its focus three years ago from
the federal level to a handful of states.
The decision, says Ellen Alberding, Joyce’s president, was driven both by
skepticism about action at the federal level and a belief that building deep
relationships with state and local organizations could help them seize
opportunities for change.
Such an opportunity presented itself in Illinois, she says, in the wake of the 2008
corruption scandal of former Gov. Rod Blagojevich. Longtime grantees, like the
Illinois Campaign for Political Reform, successfully pushed for limitations on
campaign contributions.
But that work took years.
“If a foundation has to report on a success in two years to its board, this might be
an issue they’d want to reconsider,” says Ms. Alberding.
Karen Hobert Flynn, vice president for strategy and programs at Common
Cause, which tries to strengthen the voices of ordinary citizens in politics, echoes
that sentiment.
When she was head of the Connecticut chapter of Common Cause, her group
and others spent 10 years pushing for public financing to limit the role of big
money in state elections. Legislation was passed in 2005, and advocates credit it
with leading to a more cooperative atmosphere in government that has resulted
in the passage of a paid -sick-leave mandate, in-state tuition for illegal
immigrants, a job creation bill, and other laws.
Says Ms. Hobert Flynn: “You can’t get a small grant and transform how
government operates.”