What Lessons are to be Learned from Freedom's Watch?

The Next Right ^ | December 9, 2008 | Matthew Taylor

[St. Louis Conservative]

What lessons are to be learned from recent news that conservative advocacy group, Freedom’s Watch (FW), is shutting their doors? Mistakes of 2008 must be the stepping stones upon which the future of the conservative movement is built. Here are some thoughts on the FW collapse:

1) Speak softly and carry a big stick. FW turned this concept on its head. From the onset they proclaimed themselves to be the “conservative answer” to MoveOn.org. In addition, they made public the fact they were planning to raise $200million for the 2008 cycle, falling embarrassingly short at $30million. Making public their lofty goals and expectations, FW positioned themselves for disappointment forgetting a key rule of business: Under promise and over deliver. FW did the exact opposite.

2) Who’s your (sugar) daddy? Seed money is one thing, but relying on a lone, major donor (Adelson) is not healthy and it shouldn’t come as a surprise that as Sheldon’s stock plunged, so too did FW’s. Focus on developing grassroots support (see below) would have created a sustainable base of donors that would have seen FW through even the hardest of economic times. For sake of simplicity, assume FW budget was $200k. Would you rather lose one donor at $100k or one donor at $1k. Dependence on a wealthy base of donors is easy so long as the money flows, yet it leaves an organization extremely vulnerable to collapse and its top-down approach risks alienating Average Joes. Dependence on a wider base of smaller donors is hard work, no doubt, yet it provides the necessary bottom-up support that fuels a movement for the long-haul.

[WVNan]

Plus the fact there are has been five or six of these “conservative” organizations spring up begging for money every time you check you mail. We simply can’t support that many. All of these groups need to consoladate into one giant CPOA (conservative people of America), similar to AARP.