Right Web

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Overview

The Philanthropy Roundtable, like many of the right's counter-establishment organizations, was launched in the late 1970s. It was not, however, until 1991 that the informal group of political strategists and philanthropists established a governing board of directors for the organization. Membership is open to all philanthropists and the representatives of philanthropic organizations, although most members hail from the right wing.

The Roundtable was founded on "the principle that voluntary private action offers the best means of addressing many of society's needs, and that a vibrant private sector is critical to generating the wealth that makes philanthropy possible. Its work is motivated by the belief that philanthropy is most likely to succeed when it focuses not on grand social designs, but on individual achievement, and where it rewards not dependence, but personal initiative, self-reliance, and private enterprise--in other words, where it seeks to expand, rather than restrict, human liberty and opportunity." (1)

Responding to a concern by donors that their estates will not be guided by their own principles, the Roundtable states that it is "strongly committed to donor intent, and to helping philanthropists ensure that their intentions will be adhered to in the long-term administration of their foundations and trusts. As an organization dedicated to serving donors' needs, the Roundtable represents a unique resource for those who want to make the most of their giving." (1)

The Philanthropy Roundtable has an eight-person staff and more than 600 members. (1)(2) Among other operations, the organization offers advice to their members about institutional philanthropy and about the administration of estates and trusts. It publishes the bimonthly Philanthropy magazine, which highlights cases of individuals and organizations that are making a difference by using the private sector. Its guidebooks focus on issue-related funding opportunities and providing briefings to donors about effective giving. The Roundtable Monographs, another type of publication, are issue-specific essays relating to philanthropy. (3) Like the Council on Foundations, its mainstream counterpart, the Roundtable sponsors annual conferences and topic-specific forums such as one on "How You Can Strengthen Marriage in Your Community." The theme of the Roundtable's November 2004 annual meeting is "What Unites Us--Principles of American Philanthropy."

Adam Meyerson is the president the Philanthropy Roundtable. Meyerson is a member of the Adas Israel Congregation, co-editor of the Wall Street Journal on Management, former editorial writer for the Wall Street Journal, former executive of the Heritage Foundation, former managing editor of American Spectator, and husband to Nina Shea, the director of the Center for Religious Freedom at Freedom House. (4)

The board of directors includes the following members: Daniel S. Peters (Chairman), Heather Richardson Higgins (Vice Chairman), Joseph S. Dolan (Secretary and Treasurer), Kimberly O. Dennis, Chester E. Finn, Jr., Michael W. Grebe, and James Piereson. Peters is the president and director of the Ruth & Lovett Peters Foundation and previously worked for the Proctor & Gamble Company and the Buckeye Institute. Higgins is the president and director of the Randolph Foundation, member of the Council on Foreign Relations, trustee of the Committee for Economic Development, and member of the boards of the W. H. Brady Foundation, Independent Women's Forum, and Hoover Institution. She previously worked for U.S. Trust, the Wall Street Journal, and Public Interest. Dolan is the executive director of the Achelis & Bodman Foundations and previously worked for JM Foundation, U.S. Junior Chamber of Commerce, and Fiscal Policy Council. He organized the VOTES national committee. Dennis is the executive director of the D & D Foundation and the director of the National Research Initiative at the American Enterprise Institute. She has also worked for John M. Olin Foundation, Institute for Humane Studies, Pacific Research Institute, DonorsTrust, Earhart Foundation, W. H. Brady Foundation, Independent Women's Forum, and Political Economy Research Center. Finn is president of Thomas B. Fordham Foundation and Thomas B. Fordham Institute. He previously worked for the National Commission on Philanthropy and Civic Renewal. He also served as assistant secretary for research and improvement and counselor to U.S. Department of Education Secretary William Bennett from 1985-1988, and from 1981 to 2002 he was a professor of education and public policy at Vanderbilt University. He has co-authored books with William Bennett, John Cribb, Bruno Manno, and Gregg Vanourek, and he has written articles for the National Review and the Weekly Standard. Grebe is the president of the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, and he has worked for Hoover Institution, Foley & Lardner, Republican National Committee for Wisconsin, Wisconsin Board of Veterans Affairs, University of Wisconsin's Board of Regents, Oskosh Truck Company, and Milwaukee Brewers Baseball Club. James Piereson is the executive director and trustee of the John M. Olin Foundation and a member of the board of overseers of the Hoover Institution. (5)

The Philanthropy Roundtable is one of the major organizations that provide infrastructure support to conservative foundations. Other prominent support organizations for right-wing foundations are the State Policy Network and Capital Research Center.

Origins, History, and Impact

The Philanthropy Roundtable arose as part of a strategy to build a right-wing counter-establishment that would contest the power of the "liberal establishment." At first, the Roundtable was a project funded by the Institute for Education Affairs, which was founded in 1978 by the two key figures in shaping a political strategy for corporate and right-wing philanthropy: William Simon and Irving Kristol. Just as the Business Roundtable was created to unite Corporate America around conservative policy agendas, the Philanthropy Roundtable joined the counter-establishment matrix in the tradition of "shadow liberalism"--creating institutions and campaigns that parallel those of liberals and progressives.

William Simon, the founding chairman of the Institute for Education Affairs, in his 1978 book A Time for Truth, laid out the central role that right-wing and corporate philanthropy could play in combating the power of the liberal establishment. After having served as energy czar and treasury secretary in the Nixon and Ford administrations, Simon dedicated himself to boosting the power of corporate and right-wing philanthropy. In addition to serving as the chairman of the Institute for Education Affairs, Simon served as the longtime president of the John M. Olin Foundation. In A Time for Truth, Simon wrote: "Most private funds flow ceaselessly to the very institutions which are philosophically committed to the destruction of capitalism." In particular, he added, "the great corporations of America sustain the major universities, with no regard for the content of their teachings [and sustain] the major foundations, which nurture the most destructive egalitarian trends." Instead he advocated that the right wing needed to channel "multimillions" to the "counterintelligentsia" if it were serious about its goal of moving the public policy to the right. (6)(7)

The IEA, under the direction of Simon and Kristol, aimed to funnel millions of dollars into the "war of ideas" with what they called the "adversary culture"--meaning liberals, progressives, and secularists. (6) Eventually, the Philanthropy Roundtable became an independent organization with its own board and membership. In the early 1980s the Philanthropy Roundtable came into its own after conservative donors split from the centrist Council on Foundations to protest the organization's adoption of The Principles and Practices of Effective Grant making, claiming that the report encouraged the "politicization of philanthropy." (8) At the same time, however, the newly reorganized Philanthropy Roundtable aimed to create a force in corporate, individual, and foundation giving that would boost right-wing ideas and causes.

According to the Philanthropy Roundtable, it emerged as the result of "an increasing lack of political and intellectual diversity within parts of the philanthropic community." Instead, it aimed "to promote greater respect for private, voluntary approaches to individual and community betterment" with the goal of providing "a forum where donors could discuss the principles and practices that inform the best of America's charitable tradition." According to a 2004 report by the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, "the roundtable, while maintaining a small membership base--compared with the Council on Foundations, which has more than 2,000 members--still manages to be a powerful organizing tool for conservative philanthropy." (9)

The offices of the Philanthropy Roundtable are found in the Washington, DC building that is also the home of such prominent neoconservative institutes and publications as the Weekly Standard, Project for the New American Century, and American Enterprise Institute. The Roundtable and the Project for the New American Century are closely connected, especially through their common connections to the Bradley Foundation and revolving door patterns of employment.

Daniel McKivergan, the deputy director of the Project for the New American Century, typifies the way individual members of the right's power complex weave their way back and forth between foundations, policy institutes, and publications. In 1994 McKivergan was a founding member of the Project for the New Republican Future, a project directed by William Kristol and sponsored by the Bradley Foundation with the aim of guiding the Republican Party to victory in congressional and presidential elections. Later McKivergan joined the neoconservative Weekly Standard, and then later joined the Philanthropy Roundtable as policy director before taking on his current job as PNAC's deputy director.

Michael Joyce played a key role in shaping the political directions of the Philanthropy Roundtable. The longtime president (1986-2000) of the Bradley Foundation, Joyce served until 2003 as chair of the Roundtable's board of directors. Bill Kristol, like his father, has cultivated close ties with Joyce and with Bradley and other right-wing foundations that now exhibit a decidedly neoconservative cast. Joyce, who was a PNAC signatory, said that it was inevitable that Bush would embrace the neoconservative agenda. "I'm not sure September 11 did more than push the timetable up," Joyce noted. Commenting on the special role of right-wing foundations, Michael Grebe, current president of the Bradley Foundation and one of the five directors of the Philanthropy Roundtable, said: "We have a role in sustaining a conservative intellectual infrastructure." (10)

Although decidedly conservative, the Philanthropy Roundtable attracts interest from donors, corporations, and foundation program officers who are not identified with the rightwing through its attention to such issues as charter schools, reform of the legal system (especially tort law), private conservation initiatives, and the role of voluntary community organizations. At first the Philanthropy Roundtable was primarily a membership organization, but under the leadership of Michael Joyce it started taking a more activist role. As the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy noted, "It appears poised to become more active in promoting conservative organizations and causes in which donors can become involved." (9)

Funding

Funding comes from the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, Alleghany Foundation, Earhart Foundation, John M. Olin Foundation, Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation, Scaife Family Foundation, Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation, Philip M. McKenna Foundation, Smith Richardson Foundation, Castle Rock Foundation, JM Foundation, and Sarah Scaife Foundation. According to Media Transparency, from 1993 to 2002, Philanthropy Roundtable received 85 grants amounting to $2,784,700 from these organizations. In 2003 the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation was the Roundtable's leading source of foundation financial support. (11)

Board members Grebe, Dennis, Piereson, and Dolan are also currently or formerly associated with some of the associations that provide core support to the Philanthropy Roundtable. Grebe is the president of the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation. Dennis has been associated with both the Earhart Foundation the John M. Olin Foundation. Piereson is the executive director and trustee of the John M. Olin Foundation. Dolan formerly worked for the JM Foundation. (5)

A recent $900,000 grant from the W. H. Brady Foundation will help boost the influence of the Philanthropy Roundtable. The grant specifies the formation of several "affinity groups" that will direct new work in the following areas, with the aim of achieving "dramatic breakthroughs": education improvement, "restoring loving marriage as the bedrock institution of our society," improving environmental quality through private conservation, and fostering "indispensable" contributions to the war against terrorism. (9)