Social justice philanthropy: can we get more bang for the buck?

Peter Dreier is E.P. Clapp Distinguished Professor of Politics, and Director of the Urban & Environmental Policy Program, at Occidental College in Los Angeles. His most recent book is Place Matters: Metropolitics for the 21st Century (University Press of Kansas, 2001, coauthored with John Mollenkopf and Todd Swanstrom), which recently won the American Political Science Association's Michael Harrington Book Award.

Private philanthropy's involvement in the nation's social and economic life raises profound questions about how society meets basic needs. Should certain things -- jobs, health care, housing -be considered a right, guaranteed by society or a private good allocated by the marketplace? Should philanthropy promote government action or directly help those not well served by the private sector?

The current political climate is characterized by enormous ferment and discontent over the nation's economic and political direction. But this discontent is not well organized, nor is there a clear policy agenda around which to mobilize it in the political arena. There is a huge disconnect between what Americans are discussing at home, at work, and in their communities, and what passes for political analysis, discussion, agenda-setting, and mobilization in mainstream American politics.

Unions, community organizations, environmental groups, civil rights and women's organizations, faith-based organizations, and others have had limited success injecting environment and social and economic justice issues into the public debate. The American public lacks the means to forcefully inject these views into the political arena.

Americans are ideologically ambivalent about "big government." But in pragmatic terms, they expect the public sector to meet people's needs; the vast majority of Americans want activist government.

It is quite evident from public opinion polls, focus groups and other efforts to tap the pulse of the public, as well as from the experience of "on the ground" activists and organizers, that the vast majority of Americans -- urban and suburban, across the racial and religious spectrum, and even among most income groups -- share what might be called this "populist" outlook. On key fairness and campaign reform issues, there is no ambivalence. Public opinion overwhelmingly supports liberal and even progressive remedies, but the 9/11 tragedy solidified Americans' recognition of the importance of government.

Americans are also suspicious of large corporations and those who run them. They are angry about: the cost of health care and medicine, lay-offs and stagnant wages and benefits, the fate of their pensions, and the safety of their workplaces and consumer goods. They are outraged by "crony capitalism" and the influence of corporate money on our political system. These attitudes are deeper than outrage at recent corporate scandals, and will not be pacified by putting a few "bad apple" executives in jail and/or enacting a few new regulatory laws.

THE UNLEVEL PLAYING FIELD

Why, given the reality of public opinion on these issues, have liberal and progressive policies made so little headway in recent years? A major explanation is that organizations promoting a progressive agenda lack financial, staff and media-access resources to translate public opinion into political influence and public policy.

Politics often boils down to a contest between organized people and organized money. This doesn't guarantee that big business gets everything it seeks. It doesn't, as activists know, which gives progressives hope. But great disparities in financial resources mean that big money organizations have a significant advantage in electoral politics, determining research priorities, and getting issues and organizations in the media's line of vision. Progressive victories come when they can build a solid political base, forge key …