On Donor Activism
I’ve touched on this imperfect idea before, but stay with me for a moment. You know how with shareholder activism, people who want to change something about a company buy lots of shares (it doesn’t have to happen exactly like that, but the result is that someone who is not content has control over a large block of shares) and then try to influence the direction of the company?
PeTA and PCRM, and maybe other organizations use this tactic as a way of getting the attention of a company whose policies/actions they want to alter. I have no idea what their rate of success is, but with the campaigns at The Point, with social networking as popular as it is, with viral videos and e-mails, if someone has a complaint about the way their favorite organization is conducting its business, they could easily start a campaign to take back that organization.
Taking it back is different from "attacking" it or "infighting" as you’re telling your favorite group that you admire so much about it and you really do want to keep giving money, but there are campaigns, or aspects of their public image, or concentration on certain species or whatever that you think are misguided . . . or worse. Just like with shareholder activism (sort of, as it’s not like you actually have more votes just because you give more), donor activism is most/only effective once you’ve amassed a large number of donors or the donors you’ve amassed contribute a large amount of money. One might even start a website or blog to take back an organization.
With all of the contacts some of you have, and the ability to reach large numbers, I think this could work. What I like most about the idea is that the premise is that you once respected the group and was proud to have it speak for you and you want to feel that way again. And with a few changes, which you include (and do yourself a favor and don’t use language like: "List of Demands") in your statement to the group, you’d feel comfortable returning. But if those changes aren’t made, you’ll (all) unfortunately have to take your donations elsewhere.
I’d imagine that a person who started a donor activism campaign would be a long-term member who could name a list of things the organization does that they do like. This isn’t people from the outside coming in to take the group down; it’s people who are (or used to be) on the inside and want it back. It’s not a hostile takeover, it’s constructive criticism with leverage.
Because in the rest of my life I’m a solutions-provider, I can’t help but think of the animal rights movement (is there one?) as having problems I can create solutions for.
Okay, now you can comment and tell me what a horrible idea this is.
This might work somewhat if the person were a very large donor and had been for many years. Otherwise I think the organizations would say "if you don't like it then goodbye." Shareholders have votes and thus can actually replace the board if things get bad enough. Donors do not have votes. In fact peta and pcrm concentrate so much power in a few leaders and have small and essentially powerless boards so they fail better business burea standards on charity oversight. They know this but the leaders want all the say and all the power. Unless you are giving several thousand a year and including them in your estate, I doubt they'd even listen. With that I still don't think they'd change.
Lyda,
I did say that I'd imagine the person to start this campaign would be a long-time member, but also this isn't about one person. This is about forming a campaign of like-minded individuals who want to influence an organization and make it one they want to belong to and give to (so there's an assumption that there's promise).
And donors do have votes when they or their block is big enough. I've written about this before, but it's worth repeating: large enough donations, whether from one person or a group, can absolutely alter the mission and programs of an organization. "Can" means they are able to, but the caveat, as you mention, is that the board (I HOPE–as opposed to the Executive Director alone) decides whether any change will be a-comin'.
I guess I see such disappointment from people who are or were members of large organizations, and I'd like to find a way to empower them and make it possible for them to have their voices heard and also contribute to the evolution (/redirecting) of the organizations. If that happens, then the animals are better served, which is the real goal.
I don't think this is a horrible idea. However, PETA already has a terrible public image. Their very name makes lots of people angry. They have confused the public about the definition of "animal rights" for so long that, were they to switch to an abolitionist stance, they would seem even more ridiculous. PETA is done for. It would be better to donate to a more abolitionist organization, such as Friends of Animals. Or maybe it would be good to just start a new one.
This is an interesting topic, because we can also look at it from the organization’s standpoint and the theory of how NPOs behave, including how they get co-opted and compromised by big donors.
An example is a small environmental nonprofit that needs funds to grow, so they accept a large corporate polluter’s large donation to provide funds for their mission. In the process, the large polluter has just compromised the small nonprofit and at least to some extent, if not a large extent, undermined their mission.
PeTA, for example, is funded at least 50% (possibly more) by non-vegetarians. Once an organization decides to focus on growth and (political) power instead of its core mission, the temptation to be compromised with big money that comes from dubious donors is usually too strong to resist (given that focus). NPOs will do whatever their biggest donors tell them to do, perhaps mitigated a little by the remaining donors. However, as the percentage of dubious donations grows, the donors true to the original mission tend to flee the organization, causing even more erosion of the original mission of the organization. At some point, the organization reaches a point of no return in its compromise. PeTA will never and can never go back to being the organization that truly supported the mission and motto of the 1980s: “Animals are not ours to use, wear, etc…”, notwithstanding their continued use of that outdated motto (if I’m not mistaken, PeTA still uses that motto, although I’m not sure why, given their activity).
In contrast, Peaceful Prairie Sanctuary has had offers by wealthy welfarists to “help them out” financially, but has refused because PPS refuses to be compromised by a focus on growth and/or power at a sacrifice of principle. They would rather struggle financially and be true to their abolitionist mission than to be bought by people who would like to take over and/or compromise the mission.
Dan,
So basically what I'm suggesting has already occurred with PeTA, but from the opposite direction, and the result is the PeTA of today.
Buzzkill.
Exactly.
However, there’s a big lesson here for founders, managers, and board directors of new and principled NPOs: How important is your mission? What is more important, rapid growth or the mission? Rapid growth and mission preservation often are in direct conflict. If founders, board directors, and managers are careful and alert to ulterior motives of donors, they can prevent inadvertent takeovers and compromises by refusing “sweet deals” with big donors whose motives might not be apparent at first.
Something similar often happens with strategic planning when someone on the board finds a grant opportunity that doesn't quite fit but they have the important connection and know the grant will be approved. Suddenly, the focus of the organization just changed a bit simply because there was money available to change it. It might not be an attempt at a takeover, but a mission can easily morph if it follows the money rather than vice versa. Accept at PPS!
That’s true; the morphed mission isn’t always a deliberate outside attempt to derail the mission, and that’s especially true of mainstream missions that are supported in principle by 99% of the general public.
However, the organizations that have to be the most on-guard against outside attempts to derail or compromise the mission are those on a frontier of a movement that conflicts with exploitive special interests. Environmental protection and animal rights are classic examples where those opposing these movements have been enormously successful at compromising and derailing them through both donor influence/takover and by making the organizations partners-in-compromise (e.g. the recent PeTA / KFC Canada deal).
The industry-welfarist partnership deals are a win-win for everybody *except* the animals and the original mission of the organization. The industry gets the benefit of being supported and promoted by the NPO “watchdog” and resolves a PR problem/nightmare by giving up something that is either trivial or that they are planning to do for economic reasons anyway. The NPO gets a “victory” in which they overstate how “earth shattering” and “wonderful” is the trivial change thereby drawing more mainstream donations (further compromising the donor base). Meanwhile, the public is assured by both the industry and NPO that the industry organization is “good” and to be supported. And so the cycle continues until the NPO is a partner-in-crime with industry, upholds a façade of being a watchdog, and abandons or changes the original mission altogether.
James LaVeck of Tribe of Heart wrote a good article called “Invasion of the Movement Snatchers” on a similar way that exploitive special interests compromise individual leaders of NPOs as follows:
(PAGE DOWN TO THE THIRD PAGE for “Invasion of the Movement Snatchers”):
http://www.tribeofheart.org/pdf/satyaessay2.pdf
My vote is to do action on our own terms, rather than bogging ourselves down "fixing" these big, seriously flawed organizations. Yes, they're big, but what matters (in my book) is grassroots lifestyle activism and advocacy. We can each have a huge impact in our small, local worlds, and when enough people are doing that effectively, it changes the whole culture. Who knows our social circles, our communities, our neighbors, better than we do? Why depend on big membership-based organizations to do it for us, if we can do it more effectively ourselves?