March 20, 2007 | Read Time: 1 minute
Philip Cubeta—who describes himself on his blog Gift Hub as the “morals tutor to America’s wealthiest families”—argues there’s no need to pit “big liberal foundations” against “small religious organizations” in a quest to revive grass-roots civic engagement.
Mr. Cubeta, who works for a financial-services firm in Dallas, says William Schambra did just that in an opinion piece that appears in the latest issue of The Chronicle of Philanthropy.
Mr. Schambra heads a philanthropy program at the conservative Hudson Institute, and Mr. Cubeta detected a whiff of partisanship in his opinion article, which praised President Bush’s efforts to promote small and religious-oriented charities.
“I think this issue of community, and really of democracy, unites people from all walks of life, and all across the political spectrum,” he says he wrote to Mr. Schambra in an e-mail message. “I wonder if you would be willing, and in a position to promote, such grass-roots engagement, as a unifying element, rather than a wedge issue?”
In fact, Mr. Cubeta wonders whether Mr. Schambra is actually a “closeted progressive.”
“There is a side of your work that is very much in tune with what I would call progressivism, including the ‘net roots’ variety,” Mr. Cubeta wrote. He told his readers he’d like someone to buy Mr. Schambra out of his Hudson contract and send him on the road to promote “just plain old democracy, not this party or that.”
Discuss your thoughts about Mr. Schambra’s opinion article, and Mr. Cubeta’s response, by clicking on the link just below this posting.
