February 5, 2004 | Read Time: 4 minutes
Is Denver’s Daniels Fund involved in a reorganization, or a political cleansing?
Several people familiar with the Daniels Fund, including a board member and several former staff members,
fear that the recent layoffs of 21 workers may be setting the stage for a move by the foundation into conservative advocacy on social issues — an area they say Bill Daniels, a cable-industry entrepreneur who founded the fund, had no interest in. Mr. Daniels died in 2000.
Concern about politics taking center stage focuses on two foundation officials: John V. Saeman II, the board’s new chairman, who owns an asset-management firm in Denver and whose own family foundation focuses on issues of importance to the Catholic Church, including opposition to abortion; and Peter J. Droege, who was hired as the fund’s new vice president of communications in January.
Mr. Droege formerly served as executive director of the Solidarity Institute, an advocacy group supported by the Saeman Family Foundation. Mr. Droege helped to organize “Pure by Choice,” a stadium event advocating sexual abstinence among young people, and the Solidarity Institute provided financial support for a “Silent No More” gathering, where women who regret having had an abortion stand up and tell their stories.
“I’m concerned that the fund may move away from the mission of its founder,” says Diane D. Denish, a board member at the Daniels Fund, the niece of Bill Daniels, and the lieutenant governor of New Mexico.
Founder’s Intentions
Even through Mr. Daniels was an avid Republican (he ran unsuccessfully for Colorado governor in the Republican primary in 1974), he “didn’t intend for us to be a policy organization,” says Ms. Denish, a Democrat. “He intended for us to help poor people and give kids a second chance.” The fund’s bylaws require 30 percent of spending to go to scholarships and a college-prep program for low-income students. Ninety percent of the scholarships and grants are awarded in Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming.
“They’re getting rid of the people who Phil [Hogue] hired, and they’re bringing in staff who they feel comfortable with and who are politically in sync with their values,” says Richard Male, a consultant to nonprofit groups and adjunct professor at Regis University.
Two former staff members voiced similar concerns, but refused to be quoted on the record, citing confidentiality agreements they signed that they believe could jeopardize severance payments worth at least six months of salary plus benefits.
Rejecting Charges
Hank Brown, president of the Daniels Fund, flatly rejects the notion that the fund will focus on conservative causes, and he denies that people were pushed out for their politics. Mr. Brown, a former U.S. senator who had generally been considered a moderate, replaced Phillip J. Hogue as president in the summer of 2002. Mr. Hogue, who remains a board member at the fund, resigned voluntarily to battle a life-threating illness.
Mr. Brown points to strongly worded bylaws drafted by Mr. Daniels that set out the nine areas open for grant making. Only one of the areas — “innovative education,” which, among other things, makes grants for school-voucher programs and charter schools — could be considered a program that could be shaped by political conservatives. “Many funds have a broad charge, but we’re quite a bit different,” Mr. Brown says. “The fund is prohibited from supporting any charitable organization not listed in the categories established by Bill.”
And Mr. Droege “won’t have anything to do with grant making,” Mr. Brown adds.
For his part, Mr. Droege says he sought the Daniels Fund job because it provided a bigger stage — “an opportunity to be involved in an organization that can really transform the philanthropy and the culture in these states.” But he adds: “I will not try to advance anything that would be outside of Bill Daniels’s philanthropic interests.”
Pablo Eisenberg, a senior fellow at the Georgetown University Public Policy Institute and a regular contributor to The Chronicle’s opinion pages, says the proof is on the payroll — those who are departing have very little in common with those who are arriving. He points to Barclay Jones and Stephen Patrick, among others, as “good young staffers” who he believes were shown the door because they were thought to be “too progressive.”
Mr. Jones was director of the fund’s Colorado grants program until reaching a financial agreement to resign voluntarily last spring. Mr. Patrick headed the New Mexico office until last month, and was the only one of the three field-office directors who was not offered a job in Denver.
“I think there’s politics at play,” Mr. Eisenberg says. “This is sort of like a right-wing coup.”
Mr. Brown says that the two field-office directors who were offered jobs in the Denver office — Michelle Sullivan in Wyoming, and Perry Mathews in Utah — could be considered just as progressive as Mr. Patrick. (Neither one elected to make the move to Denver, though Mr. Mathews may continue to do occasional work for the fund on a contract basis.) “We didn’t pick and choose people,” Mr. Brown says.
