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'The Resistance' Faces A New Question: What To Do With All That Money
NPR ^ | March 26, 2017 | Sam sanders

Posted on 03/26/2017 1:39:16 PM PDT by Drango

The numbers, in several cases, are astounding. 350.org, a climate action group, saw donations almost triple in the month after Donald Trump's election. Since Trump's win, Planned Parenthood told NPR it's gained over 600,000 new donors and more than 36,000 new volunteers. And the American Civil Liberties Union has raised more than $80 million since November 8th.

Key players in what's being called "The Resistance" — a vocal and growing progressive backlash to the Trump presidency — have been flooded with, and in some cases overwhelmed by an outpouring of money and volunteer support in the last few months. In many cases, these groups are struggling to keep up.

For instance, MoveOn.org, an anti-war group turned anti-Trump group, and Indivisible, a group that created a playbook for progressives to lobby members of Congress and disrupt congressional town halls, held a joint conference call the day after the Women's March on Washington in January. It was historic.

"We had 60 thousand people join one conference call," says Anna Galland, Executive Director of MoveOn Civic Action. "Guinness Book of World Records told us we broke the record for one conference call." (The current record for a conference call on the Guinness website is 16,972 people on a call organized by Broadnet Teleservices.)

Sandra Minuitti, Vice President of marketing at Charity Navigator, a watchdog group that rates charities and nonprofits, has a name for all of this new money that groups in The Resistance have been receiving: "rage giving."

National groups may be able to more easily adapt to all this new "rage giving," but for state and local groups, some of that adjustment requires an entire reworking of an organization.

Alison Beyea, the executive director of the ACLU of Maine says that the growth in her chapter has been astronomical. Membership has already doubled — twice. And she had to make big changes.

"I have to be honest, that initially when there was endless emails about people wanting to volunteer, there certainly was a bit of apprehension," says Beyea. "We haven't traditionally been an organization that has worked with volunteers."

But the group has since adapted, and has even given those volunteers their own day, Beyea told NPR. "We call them Team Tuesday."

Of all the groups interviewed, the ACLU's national operation has the most clear-cut plan of how it will use all of its newfound support. Besides organizing volunteers at the state and local level, the ACLU recently organized a Resistance training called "People Power" for new volunteers. And a memo on the organization's website details just how its new influx of cash will be spent, with more than half the new funds being spent in key battleground states where fights are taking place over key issues important to the ACLU. The organization also joined a school for startups in Silicon Valley called Y Combinator, to figure out some best practices for spending money wisely.

While having more money than you know what to do with can seem like the perfect problem, David Van Slyke, dean of the Maxwell School of Public Affairs at Syracuse University, says there is an inherent challenge: meeting the expectations of new donors and finding ways to keep them giving in the future. Some of that challenge, says Van Slyke, is remedied by specificity.

"What is it you're resisting about the president," says Van Slyke. "Is it the president himself? Is it a particular executive order? A particular appointment?"

Many donors to the so-called Resistance may find themselves aligned with some of a group's aims, but not all of them. For instance, the ACLU recently defended conservative firebrand Milo Yiannapoulus and the organization in fact, does not endorse political candidates or advocate for any particular political party.

Michael Cornfield, a professor of political management at George Washington University, says players in The Resistance can learn a lesson or two from the Tea Party, a group born out of resistance to America's previous president.

"One of the unusual features and I think it's a key to their success," Cornfeild told NPR, "is that there was no head of the Tea Party." For Cornfield, a problem arises when "you have someone or two people who think they personify the movement and their vanity creeps in."

Cornfield also says the Tea Party succeeded by focusing locally and trying to obstruct their opponents every chance they got. But he also notes that now, as the Tea Party celebrates the Republican Party's return to power, it hasn't all been a victory lap. "The Tea Party is part of an extremely uneasy majority coalition that controls this Congress and a lot of legislatures and statehouses," Cornfield said, "and they don't know what to do next."

As money continues to pile up for The Resistance, there's another question facing key players: how quickly should they spend it? The half dozen groups that spoke with NPR said their goal was to use it soon, and not worry too much about stockpiling for a later day. "People give us money today, to make a difference today and tomorrow," said Anthony Romero, Executive Director of the ACLU. "I think that it's really important that we put as much wood on this fire right now as we possibly can." For Kelly Robinson, an organizer with the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, that means collaborating as much as possible with like-minded groups. "It is clear that if we're going to get free," she told NPR, "we're all going to get free together."

Of course, for smaller and newer organizations involved in The Resistance, behind the waves of support there is also a bit of uncertainty. Ezra Levin is one of the founders of Indivisible, the campaign to help progressives lobby their members of Congress and engage them at town halls, Tea Party style. He says some of the group's work is being figured out on the fly.

Levin says Indivisible began as just a Google Doc, and when that crashed, he and his cofounders built a website, promising never to become an official organization, and only provide a guidebook for progressives that need it. Now Indivisible is a 501(c)4 nonprofit accepting donations and growing by the day. "What we see right now is this fierce urgency," Levin told NPR. "We're definitely building the plane while we fly it."


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: npr
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The left is mobilizing. NPR is their megaphone.
1 posted on 03/26/2017 1:39:16 PM PDT by Drango
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To: Drango

So they obviously don’t need any taxpayer dollars.


2 posted on 03/26/2017 1:40:59 PM PDT by ilovesarah2012
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To: Drango

What exactly are these clowns “resisting?”

Other than America?


3 posted on 03/26/2017 1:41:15 PM PDT by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is either satire or opinion. Or both)
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To: Drango

Now we know where all that money from the DOJ shakedown of the banks went.


4 posted on 03/26/2017 1:43:04 PM PDT by WMarshal (President Trump, a president keeping his promises to the American people. It feels like winning.)
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To: ilovesarah2012

Exactly. Let those who want those organizations pay for them, not my tax $$.


5 posted on 03/26/2017 1:43:40 PM PDT by madison10 (Bless you, Mr. DJ Trump.)
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To: Drango

So .2% of folks sent in money for left wing causes and 99.8% did not and that is a battle cry?


6 posted on 03/26/2017 1:46:04 PM PDT by A CA Guy (God Bless America, God Bless and keep safe our fighting men and women.)
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To: Drango

Prediction: They’ll squander it.


7 posted on 03/26/2017 1:46:46 PM PDT by FroggyTheGremlim (Hillary Clinton: the official candidate of the National Sleep Foundation)
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To: ilovesarah2012

B
I
N
G
O
!


8 posted on 03/26/2017 1:47:21 PM PDT by Paladin2 (No spellcheck. It's too much work to undo the auto wrong word substitution on mobile devices.)
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To: Drango
It may come in handy when Disney sues them for copyright infringement. "The Resistance" is the new Rebel Alliance in the current batch of Star Wars movies. No matter what Disney's political leanings, they might not be happy with a bunch of hooligans giving their product a bad name.

9 posted on 03/26/2017 1:53:44 PM PDT by jmcenanly ("The more corrupt the state, the more laws." Tacitus, Publius Cornelius)
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To: Drango
The numbers, in several cases, are astounding. 350.org, a climate action group, saw donations almost triple in the month after Donald Trump's election. Since Trump's win, Planned Parenthood told NPR it's gained over 600,000 new donors and more than 36,000 new volunteers. And the American Civil Liberties Union has raised more than $80 million since November 8th.

Why do the initials "G" "S" keep coming to mind?

10 posted on 03/26/2017 1:58:18 PM PDT by DoughtyOne (NeverTrump, a movement that was revealed to be a movement. Thank heaven we flushed!)
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To: Drango

The Resistance speaks:

Kill the babies!

Starve the farmers!

Burn the rifles!

Shut down the factories!

Put the woods off limits!

Jail those Nazi racists!

******************* Trump!


11 posted on 03/26/2017 1:59:49 PM PDT by Cicero (Marcus Tullius)
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To: Drango

“For instance, the ACLU recently defended conservative firebrand Milo Yiannapoulus and the organization in fact, does not endorse political candidates or advocate for any particular political party.”

WTF??


12 posted on 03/26/2017 2:03:12 PM PDT by max americana (For the 9th time FIRED LIBERALS from our company at this election, and every election since 2008)
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To: jmcenanly

LOL you kidding me? Disney is the most liberal, leftard company in Hollywood. Beauty and the Beast is a fag movie, maybe you haven’t heard. I deal with these clowns in production every week and most of their top execs are poofters and anti Trump clowns.


13 posted on 03/26/2017 2:05:08 PM PDT by max americana (For the 9th time FIRED LIBERALS from our company at this election, and every election since 2008)
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To: Drango

Bill, Hillary, and Chelsea have many ideas on how to spend that money. Bill has girlfriends, Hillary has girlfriends, and Chelsea needs a decorator.


14 posted on 03/26/2017 2:12:04 PM PDT by ClearCase_guy (Abortion is what slavery was: immoral but not illegal. Not yet.)
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To: Drango

THIS IS GREAT!!! SO THEY DON’T NEED GOV MONEY!!!!

AND THEY WON’T EVEN EXIST SOON UNLESS THEY’RE PRIVATELY FUNDED! :)


15 posted on 03/26/2017 2:12:56 PM PDT by dp0622 (The only thing an upper crust cIonservative hates more than a liberal is a middle class conservative)
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To: dp0622

These lunatics are the resistance. They resist truth, logic, civil society, normalcy, reason, integrity, ethics, rationality, meritocracy, life, religion...and so forth. Losers all...retrograde losers.


16 posted on 03/26/2017 2:19:47 PM PDT by hal ogen (First Amendment or Reeducation camp?)
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To: Drango
NPR is their megaphone

One of them, along with Hollywood, the schools, the MSM both broadcast & print, unions, and the list goes on and on. Yes, they certainly do not need taxpayer money any longer.

17 posted on 03/26/2017 2:20:33 PM PDT by Robert DeLong
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To: jmcenanly

Oh they won’t do that, they are part & parcel with them. In fact they probably view it as good advertising.


18 posted on 03/26/2017 2:21:55 PM PDT by Robert DeLong
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To: Drango

Every ‘non-profit’ needs to have a proctology exam by the IRS with specific attention to fomenting civil unrest, RICO, money laundering, foreign connections/espionage, advocating criminal activity, etc.


19 posted on 03/26/2017 2:27:39 PM PDT by SpaceBar
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To: eCSMaster
I can see many expense-paid junkets to exotic locations for fancy "conferences" and "working groups" attended by the head honchos of these scams. You can only buy so many PSA's before you turn people off, and they learn to ignore the noise.
20 posted on 03/26/2017 2:32:52 PM PDT by hinckley buzzard
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