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Fifth Column
Magic Money Foundation Cash Funds Antiwar Movement
2003-04-03
In a few months, foundations and donors have kicked in millions of dollars to help antiwar groups stage demonstrations, take out expensive newspaper and TV ads, maintain Web sites, hire and pay staff, and lease office space in high-rent New York, Washington and San Francisco locales. Most work under the umbrella of sympathetic "fiscal sponsors," groups with tax-exempt status that have also lent out staff and office space.

Code Pink Women for Peace
  • operates under the aegis of Global Exchange, a San Francisco organization with a $4.2 million budget.
  • Code Pink co-founder Medea Benjamin, is a director for Global Exchange
  • pays only $400 a month for a cubicle office at 15th and H streets in the District and has space on loan from two organizations down the hall, N.O.W. and the Institute for Policy Studies.
  • Raised $70,000 to $80,000 in its four-month existence, mostly through its www.codepinkalert.org site and sales of Code Pink buttons and T-shirts, "which we can't keep in stock," she adds.

The Institute for Policy Studies, director John Cavannagh
  • has a $2.2 million budget for 2003 provided by the Turner, Ford, MacArthur and Charles Stewart Mott foundations, among others
  • The brunt of the peace funding, is being done by smaller foundations able to quickly shift funds from other programs using offshore money laundering entities
  • The institute's 2002 foreign policy budget of $400,000, which includes antiwar activism, received $50,000 from the HKH Foundation, $50,000 from the Arca Foundation, $20,000 from the Samuel Rubin Foundation, $15,000 from the Solidago Foundation and $50,000 from the MacArthur Foundation.

Iraq Pledge of Resistance Network in Silver Spring, Gordon Clark, national coordinator of and the sole staff member!
  • ran organization during the past six months on $32,000 in grants from donors and institutions

ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) refused to divulge its funding sources.

TrueMajority.com, an Internet activism group founded during the summer by Ben Cohen of Ben & Jerry's ice cream, boasts of its fund-raising prowess.
  • TrueMajority.com says it is bringing in substantial amounts of money thanks to high-profile newspaper ads. These started in November, when 150 members of its related nonprofit corporation, Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities Inc., ran a $40,000 antiwar ad in the New York Times. That brought in $80,000, partly because "we had the foresight to include a coupon," executive director Gary Ferdman says. That revenue helped pay for a $170,000 ad in the Jan. 13 Wall Street Journal national edition and later a $40,000 ad in the Journal's New York metro edition
    Hmmm...income ($80,000) minus cost ($40,000 1st ad) minus cost ($40,000 second ad) equals $170,00 cost of another ad. That's one hell of a magic coupon! How did they do that?..
  • TrueMajority.com says, Thanks to the Turner Foundation and the San Francisco-based Plowshares Fund, its $1.5 million operating budget helps pay for five full-time staff and six consultants
  • TrueMajority.com webmaster Andrew Greenblatt, who has free office space at the National Council of Churches headquarters in uptown Manhattan, says the site brings in several thousand dollars a month. "It is not rocket science," he says. "You ask for money, and people give it to you."
    It's not rocket science, it's magic!
    Because U.S. tax laws allow at least a year's grace period before a nonprofit must file a 990 tax form revealing who its donors are, most antiwar groups will not have to reveal their funding sources until 2004.
The San Francisco-based Tides Foundation
  • has given $1.5 million to antiwar efforts since September 11, 2001, including a salary for former U.S. Rep. Tom Andrews of Maine, who directs the 38-member Win Without War coalition

Win Without War founder David Cortright, who is also president of the Fourth Freedom Foundation in Goshen, Ind.
  • announced its formation at a press conference Dec. 11, has drummed up $1 million in support which has provided substantial antiwar support.
Moveon.org
  • Eli Pariser, international campaigns director says the Web site raised $3.5 million for liberal political candidates in the 2002 election
  • has also raised $1.3 million for large newspaper ads against the war,
  • Its legendary fund raising from its 2 million members includes $400,000 raised in 48 hours to fund a Jan. 16 antiwar TV spot that accused President Bush of risking nuclear war
  • Pariser says, on average, donors give $35, but donor volume has been so high that "we've turned off our log-in [mechanism] because it was blowing out our servers.
    It's magic, I tell you!
    We must be the only organization in history to have a ratio of one staff member to a half-million members."
    Busy little robo-beavers.

United for Peace and Justice (UPJ)
  • an antiwar coalition of 200 groups formed Oct. 25
  • farms out its staff to other nonprofits, such as Peace Action and Democracy Rising.

Peace Action (formerly SANE/FREEZE)
  • finance committee chairman, Van Goss, is the organizing director and a professor at Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, Pa.
  • As of March 1, he said, they had raised "several hundred thousand dollars" with the help of several foundations that kicked in $5,000 and $10,000 donations to fund a large antiwar rally in New York on Feb. 15. UPJ raised less than $30,000 from the demonstrators themselves.
These organizations are so tiny and incestuous at the top. They all get their money from "other organizations", rather than individual donors. How do the other organizations get their money? From individual donors? Of course not, they get it from other organizations, of course. It's the magic shell game!!
Posted by:Becky

#9  This is BRILLIANT follow the money, people.

Keep it in the memory banks

HELLO AUSTRALIA can anybody do a similar article for tracking Aussie groups?

In particular the socialist Resistance organisation that is the busy little bee in every high school brainwashing students. Also their 'adult' counterpart Democratic Socialist Party, and their political wing The Greens
Posted by: anon1   2003-04-04 03:32:47  

#8  The US had better start keeping an eye on these organizations. They lean tranzi.

At least they spent a hell of a lot of money for nothing. And kept ordinary people working.

Since we're looking at a deficit, it's time to start tightening up the rules for NFPs. The Reverend Jackson and his travel come to mind.
Posted by: Anonymous   2003-04-04 00:43:24  

#7  Follow the money. Exactly who are the individuals that head these foundations and who are the individual donors. These names should be published by the overnment. Are these pro-terrorist organizations tax exempt? Anyone have any information?
Posted by: TJ Jackson   2003-04-04 00:28:29  

#6  I knew that ;-) just wanted to tease a friend lol
Posted by: Frank G   2003-04-03 16:35:10  

#5  If we open ANWR and get going on the National Petroleum Reserve to the west of Prudhoe, we will be in an excellent energy situation. We will not need Saudi oil anymore. The oil companies keep a cleaner property than the protesters do in our cities. It's all about oooiiiiiillllll, LOL.
Posted by: Alaska Paul   2003-04-03 12:33:33  

#4  Innocent hmmm? How 'bout that ANWR Paul? lol
Posted by: Frank G   2003-04-03 11:34:39  

#3  We....whoops.....I mean "they". Holy smoke! I'm innocent!
Posted by: Alaska Paul   2003-04-03 10:00:03  

#2  I think that Mr. Ashcroft should look into the tax exempt status of the sponsering foundations, since we are into heavy-duty political causes, which should not be allowed under tax exempt status.
Posted by: Alaska Paul   2003-04-03 09:58:26  

#1  Money well spent: $40,000 for an ad in the paper that ends up in the dumspter the same day. $40,000 that could have done wonders for a homeless person, several in fact, or even better, the local food bank.
Contrast this with the money spent on the war in Iraq, that will lift sanctions, get about 20 million people back on their feet, and get rid of a murderous dictator as a bonus. Now that's money well spent.
Posted by: RW   2003-04-03 09:11:22  

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