Chief executives of 39 of the nation’s biggest foundations bought an ad in newspapers across the country in late July calling for more “bridges of dialogue and fewer barriers of division.” With a self-righteous nod to their organizations, they proudly claimed that they and the communities they help should give us hope for the future.
Sadly, their rhetoric is mightier than their grant making. These foundations have failed to support grass-roots organizations advocating for food stamps, jobs, health services, and housing. They have not invested in groups pushing for a tax overhaul that would promote fairness, nor have they backed nonprofits that want to hold financial institutions and corporations accountable when they hurt low-income workers and consumers.
The smugness of the foundation leaders’ proclamation belies their track record of inaction. Unless foundations transform themselves, they are not likely to be on the front lines of change. The money spent on expensive ads could have done much more good financing organizations that promote real social and economic progress.
Perhaps the most timely and urgent topic grant makers have refused to tackle is gun violence.
Despite the horrific shootings involving police and civilians in recent weeks and months, foundations and nonprofits remain mostly silent. Their voice is muted by fear of the forces opposing tighter gun restrictions, such as the National Rifle Association; political opposition to gun control; and anxiety over whether real change in this area will ever be possible.
The exception is Michael Bloomberg’s inspired and well-financed organization Everytown for Gun Safety, which in 2014 emerged as the leading national force advocating for more stringent firearms controls. According to its president, John Feinblatt, Everytown has some 3 million supporters, more than 125 staff members, and an active advocacy network of survivors of gun violence. With a guaranteed $50 million donation from Mr. Bloomberg and 100,000 other donors small and large, the nonprofit has an annual budget of $40 million and a presence in some 45 states. Its major strategy is to pass legislation mandating comprehensive background checks for gun purchases; it has already won impressive victories in several states. [Editor’s note: The previous paragraph has been updated to correct several factual errors about Everytown’s financing and membership.]
Everytown stands as a beacon of involvement and concern amid a general public apathy about gun violence. It wasn’t always this way.
In the 1980s and ‘90s, there were multiple advocacy groups engaged in high-profile fights for effective gun-control legislation. At its peak, Handgun Control Inc. (now the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence) had some 400,000 dues-paying members and a budget of $20 million. Handgun Control, the affiliated Center to Prevent Handgun Violence, and the Violence Policy Center were instrumental in the 1993 passage of the landmark “Brady bill,” which imposes a five-day waiting period on all gun purchases from licensed dealers, and the adoption in 1994 of a 10-year ban on assault weapons.
Foundations, too, were more active on the issue. The Funders Collaborative for Gun Violence Prevention, a group of grant makers headed by George Soros and Irene Diamond, was created in 1998 to channel money to gun-control groups and academic researchers that study the issue.
What the gun-control movement has come to lack, as researcher Michael Massing observed in a critical 2002 report to the Open Society Institute, is a grass-roots base. That weakness continues to hobble the movement, as grant makers too often focus on research and not enough on organizing and advocacy.
In recent months, after the shootings in Dallas and Orlando, the public’s outcry has been loud and protests have filled our streets. Members of Congress are showing some willingness to consider the issue; witness the sit-in by Democrats over the summer as they pushed for a vote on gun control.
Yet instead of seizing the opportunity to tap public and political interest, nonprofits are doing very little advocacy and organizing to advance gun control.
Almost two years ago, Independent Sector outlined six major issues for nonprofit advocacy. Gun control was not among them, even though gun violence has an effect on the biggest areas of nonprofit activity, from health care to education to economic development.
Will the Ford Foundation — which claims to have made inequality the fundamental focus of its operations — be willing to make a major commitment ($100 million or more) to help nonprofits push for effective gun-control measures? After all, safety is crucial to achieving greater equality in our society.
Will United Ways, trade associations, women’s organizations, AARP, civil-rights groups, and health charities be willing to similarly shift their priorities and join a grand coalition?
Eight years ago, fueled by giving from the Atlantic Philanthropies that eventually topped $25 million, a huge coalition came together to fight for the overhaul of the health-care system. The result was the Affordable Care Act. This fusion of nonprofit power and influence and large philanthropic support demonstrated what can be done when charities and foundations are willing to focus on a crucial issue that affects everyone they serve.
Couldn’t a similarly broad-based coalition to fight gun violence be put together with the support of America’s big foundations? Working with Everytown for Gun Safety, other gun-control groups, and local and state antiviolence organizations, they could put up a united front that would prove more than a match for the NRA.
Now is the time for nonprofit leaders to go beyond their narrow concerns and embrace an issue that is putting our society in grave danger. This is a fight nonprofits can win, and it is up to their leaders to engage all of philanthropy’s resources, constituencies, and moral standing in the battle.
Pablo Eisenberg, a regular Chronicle contributor, is a senior fellow at the Center for Public & Nonprofit Leadership at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy. His email address is pseisenberg@verizon.net.
