Critique of Report Missed Some Key Points

To the Editor:

Having only recently succeeded Robert Bothwell as the president of the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, I was not involved in the genesis of N.C.R.P.’s newest report, “$1-Billion for Ideas: Conservative Think Tanks in the 1990s,” but I could not have been more pleased with David Callahan’s product. Leslie Lenkowsky’s critique of that report (“Seeing Through the Left’s False Lament,” Opinion, April 8) appears to miss some of its central points.

Three points come to mind. First, N.C.R.P. was not contending that the philanthropic “right” outspends the “left” in support of public-policy advocacy, although much of what critics perceive to be liberal foundations I believe are actually self-consciously ideologically neutral. This report on conservative think tanks as well as N.C.R.P.’s 1997 review of conservative foundations emphasize the strategic posture of conservative activists — fundamentally their straightforward agenda aimed at winning the battle of ideas not simply for the sake of limited policy reforms, but for political power.

Second, Mr. Callahan’s report describes the strategies of the conservative think tanks themselves, which are driving aggressively ideological game plans through strategies that combine policy research with grassroots mobilization, constituency development, national and local lobbying, and marketing. Conservatives have reinvented the concept of the think tank in ways that liberal or progressive think tanks hardly approach. I find that most of the think tanks to Mr. Lenkowsky’s left do not function comparably, emphasizing policy analysis without the mobilization and constituency efforts that N.C.R.P.’s report found at the core of the strategies of conservative think tanks.

Obviously, the conservative foundations exhibit no reticence about funding and promoting the assertively political approaches and agendas of their think-tank allies. The support of the more ideologically neutral mainstream foundations for liberal think tanks has not approached a similar ideological (much less partisan) aggressiveness. The liberal think tanks tend to be tinkering with policies; the conservative think tanks are hawking ideas.

Third, Mr. Lenkowsky suggests that the ascendancy of conservative ideas, which he dismissed elsewhere in his article because of the success of the largely centrist Clinton Administration policies and the Republican Presidential candidate George W. Bush’s marriage of the terms “conservative” and “compassion,” has not taken hold in the non-profit sector. That’s certainly news to me, given my experience where the principles of the free-enterprise marketplace have increasingly captured the imagination and emphasis of non-profits and funders alike. The shift of so many non-profits to marketplace models hints at the widespread influence of conservative, free-enterprise values. Dominant conservative policy ideas such as privatization of public services and limiting the scope and compassion of government garner surprisingly deep support among the non-profits that Mr. Lenkowsky might deem to be liberal.

The aggressive national funding strategies of conservative foundations and the grassroots education and mobilization of constituencies by conservative think tanks have been successful in helping shift the policy dialogue toward the right. The question to ask is, What should progressive thinkers and progressive funders do to invigorate the progressive side of the national and local public-policy debate? N.C.R.P.’s report on conservative think tanks represents a challenge to progressive funders to support progressive public-policy advocacy on behalf of disadvantaged populations with the vigor and boldness that quite obviously motivates their conservative counterparts.

Rick Cohen
President
National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy
Washington