About Foundations

The Golden Rule: Who has the gold rules.

Private foundations have taken substantial control of the environmental movement in America, as well as blending them with labor unions and far-left groups. These foundation bring with them what psychiatrist Roy Menninger called "the narcissism of the righteous," a.k.a. the "I'm a better angel than you" syndrome. Having money and the power to decide who gets it is intoxicating and toxic both to those who give and those who get. They live in a world that knows nothing of creating wealth, but only of spending it.

But don't call it plutocracy (the rule of wealth) because that will end your credibility among the plutocrats. And don't call those who rule by wealth an oligarchy (rule by the elite few) because that will end your credibility with the elite few.

So we're reduced to calling them rich guys who give the money and the marching orders. And we call the green ones the ecoligarchy. Smile, it's a joke. You know, a story with a humorous ending? Or an unexpected juxtaposition of two disparate planes of thought that produces a sudden insight?

However, the products of the plutocracy and their ecoligarchy are not funny to the people whose lives they ruin. They destroy jobs, they destroy companies, they destroy industries, they destroy industrial sectors. Their power is enormous and dangerous.

Many liberal foundations have become prescriptive, that is, they design their own programs for leftward social change and then pressure a highly orchestrated network of environmental groups to perform their projects.

Some foundations no longer accept applications, but only fund pre-selected groups. It's strictly by invitation only.

Case in point: The Blue Moon Foundation (formerly the W. Alton Jones Foundation) once had a policy statement that advised applicants:

• The foundation works principally through foundation-defined initiatives addressing its priority issues. These initiatives usually take the form of coordinated grants to multiple institutions, each of which focuses on one or more components of an overall campaign defined by the foundation’s mission. Proposals for participation in these initiatives are invited by the foundation.

Numerous foundations have some version of this exclusionary policy.

"Prescriptive" also means pressuring applicants from the open application process into programs they would not have originated themselves.

The Environmental Grantmakers Association (EGA) is a  group of more than 200 foundations with important environmental programs. The EGA foundations meet in closed sessions to plan strategy in shutting down every economic action that affects the environment.

Foundation Facts

• Foundations and "public interest" non-profits are a big, influential and expanding industry

• During the last 15 years, the number of foundations has nearly doubled from 22,000 to 39,000

• Foundation assets now exceed $200 billion, half of it controlled by fewer than 200 foundations

• Big foundations, which have a distinctly liberal cast, use their tax-exempt dollars to fund everything from the environmental movement to studies supporting the welfare state to population control.

• When used to finance "public interest" group advocacy, foundation wealth can have an enormous influence on which public policy is adopted

• Most significant policy initiatives undertaken today by the Federal government have some foundation support, and many are implemented as a result of foundation-funded advocacy

• Those who run big foundations represent a small, elite, insulated group, most of whom live in the eastern United States, hundreds or even thousands of miles from the areas affected by the environmental policies they support

• Foundations have no voters, no customers, no investors

• They have no wish to receive feedback from those affected by their decisions, nor are they accountable to anyone for funding policies which adversely affect the well-being of people or local economies

• Tax exempt foundation funding of environmental advocacy groups unfairly tilts the playing field against the views and input of those most affected by the policies advocated

• The average citizen’s voice and input in the government decision-making process is often drowned out by those advocacy groups largely funded by foundations, making our government seem even more remote and less responsive to the needs of the average person

• At least 18 foundations give grants to environmental organizations to spy on critics, with the total of these grants from 1992 to 1996 exceeding $1 million