Funding the Next Generation of Progressive: Part II

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post on Daily Kos (that SusanG was kind enough to rescue) about the funding gap between how the Right and Left nurture their next generation of leaders. Not surprisingly, the Republicans are outspending us by far. Just one conservative organization – The Leadership Institute (where Karl Rove and Ralph Reed first honed their chops) – received more money in 2004 than almost all Democratic youth groups combined.

In the comments to that post, a constructive conversation evolved in which it was suggested (among a number of other ideas) that we create an ActBlue page to fundraise for progressive youth groups. I created such a page right away, but there are problems with this idea. This blog is a follow up to that initial discussion. Below the jump you'll hear my thoughts on the most effective ways that the netroots can help youth groups on the money front.

Since the ideas contained in the rest of this post require a significant effort on the part of the netroots, this blog is cross-posted at Daily Kos and MyDD. I would also encourage everyone to go to those sites and take the poll that I set up and participate in the discussion on those sites (if any develops - the communities on those sites are notorious for dismissing blogs or programs dedicated to young voters).

ActBlue
Building an ActBlue page to fundrais for youth organizations seemed like a good idea during the conversation in my last post, but the drawbacks to this plan became apparent to me as I built the page.

Some of these problems were immediately obvious. Many organizations that a "Youth Org" ActBlue page should raise money for are not listed in the ActBlue database. And of those that are listed, ActBlue only processes donations for roughly half of them. For the other half, ActBlue merely points you to a given org's online "donations" page.

Obviously this is not an ideal situation or basis for a netroots fundraising operation in support of building infrastructure for progressive youth. Many of the best organizations and programs won't get any money by virtue of not being listed, and since ActBlue won't process all donations, it will be impossible to keep track of how much money the program raises for each organization. I've twice emailed ActBlue about this, requesting information on why some orgs are listed and others aren't, why ActBlue only processes donations for select organizations, and what would need to happen to change this situation. I've yet to get a full response from them. At the bottom of this post I've compiled a decent (though I do not claim comprehensive) list of organizations that I think should be included in a robust, Youth Organizing ActBlue page, and noted their current status on ActBlue.

Alternative Fundraising Ideas

As I built the Future Majority Act Blue page, I realized that aside from the hurdles I've mentioned to using ActBlue, the model itself presents some problems. Most notably, the netroots are not an ATM, and these organizaitons are expensive to run. We're talking budgets in the high hundred thousands to millions. Distributing the giving power of the netroots amont 10 or 15 organizations - evenif we only solicited donations once or twice a year - will probably amount to a nothing more than a drop in the bucket of these organizations' budgets. It would never be concentrated enough to do anything that makes an impact. I see two potential models we could use to maximize the value of ever dollar donated by the netroots:

1. Pick A Single Organization: by concentrating our giving power on a single organization - picked democratically by the community once or twice a year - we could focus our giving power enough to make a programatically significant difference in the capabilities of the organization we choose. If the amount raised was significant, we could perhaps request proposals from these organizations in advance of future fundraising campaigns as a way to intelligently make our funding choices and help determine how young progressive infrastructure gets built.
2. Fund a "Netroots Scholarship:" There are some organizations out there like the Century Foundation, Coros Fellowship program, and many others, that sponsor fellowship programs that allow students and recent graduates to do paid work in a variety of political and nonprofit organizations. These fellowships help train young leaders in the ways that nonprofit and political organizations run, and can be excellent opportunities for developing leaders. A Netroots Scholarship would seek to raise enough to create a single fellowship (for 6-12 months of work). Recipients could learn the ropes on political campaigns of interest to the netroots, or the scholarship could increase the capacity of existing fellowships like DMI Scholars or Young People For . . . We could tailor it to integrate the fellowship with other netroots activities, and recipients would be required report on their experience on the blogs, etc.

Submit Your Ideas, Take the Poll
These are just a few ideas that I had, and they still need a lot of fleshing out - if they are feasible at all. I welcome alternatives ideas and feedback on those that I have presented.

Other ideas are floating around. For instance, the ideas listed here can help the larger organizations that currently exist to expand their work, but leaves lots of small organizations and entreprenuerial progressive youth twisting in the wind. It would probably be a good idea to build a Wiki or some other website as a resource that teaches young progressives how to raise money - from traditional means like grants and student government to more experimental means like fundraising widgets (ChipIn) on MySpace and FaceBook pages or fundraising pages like Fundable.

First though, and most importantly, we would need to determine the feasability of this program. Please go take the poll and let the community know if you are willing to contribute to such a program if it could be sufficiently fleshed out.

Below you will find the ActBlue listing I mentioned above.

• 21st Century Dems - Listed, processing donations
• Campus Progress - Not listed
• College Democrats - Listed, processing donations
• Cosmopolity - not listed
• DMI Scholars - not listed
• Music for America - Listed, not processing donations
• Indyvoter - Listed, not processing donations
• National Hip Hop Political Convention - Not listed
• New Organizing Institute - Listed, processing donations
• Roosevelt Institution - Not listed
• Traction - Listed, not processing donations
• Wellstone Action - Listed, not processing donations
• Vote Latino - Not listed
• Young Democrats of America - Not listed (except as individual chapters or the Action Caucus)
• Young People For - Not listed