Trump Administration Prominent Target in Fundraising by Telco Advocacy Groups
Donald Trump's incoming administration has become a key subject in fundraising and mobilization efforts by multiple telco advocacy groups in recent weeks. The amount of messaging that's overtly political is higher than ever, some experts tell us. "Telecom has always been a political process; when you're talking about subsidies of billions of dollars, let's not kid ourselves here," said Phoenix Center President Lawrence Spiwak. "But it wasn't what you see now at all."
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Export Compliance Daily combines U.S. export control news, foreign border import regulation and policy developments into a single daily information service that reliably informs its trade professional readers about important current issues affecting their operations.
"Trump doesn't care about your online rights," Free Press said in an email earlier this month, asking for donations of $10 and up specifically pegged to the group's open Internet efforts. The subject line of the fundraising email was "Our best defense against Trump." Demand Progress this month sent out fundraising solicitation emails asking for $5 toward its campaign for a pardon for Edward Snowden. Referencing Trump's having called Snowden a traitor Demand said that if Snowden's not pardoned before Jan. 20 he "will be forced to live in exile indefinitely -- or worse." The group also this month sent out a separate fundraising email for its campaign to pressure tech companies not to take part in a Trump administration Muslim registry. Center for Media Justice asked for donations of $10 or more in an email this month with the subject line, "We are coming together to fight Trump's surveillance." And Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) took out a full-page advertisement in the January issue of Wired magazine aimed at tech companies, saying the plans laid out in his campaign "threaten the free web and the rights of millions of people."
"The organizations who are responding in very direct ways to how the Trump administration will be (negatively) affecting their policies are having tremendous success fundraising right now," emailed Allison Porter, president of Avalon Consulting Group, which specializes in fundraising by progressive organizations. "For most advocacy organizations, having an 'enemy' is a great thing. This will go on indefinitely, and definitely be an asset for fundraising for the duration of his presidency. The only question is whether the nonprofit organization can offer a meaningful response -- or at least some hope that there can be."
Most nonprofit organizations shy away from incorporating politics into messaging due to the danger of being seen as taking a side, which can affect nonprofit standing under IRS rules, and political messaging is usually the purview of public interest groups and those with particular political leanings, like Planned Parenthood, said Michael Nilsen, Association of Fundraising Professionals vice president-public affairs. There's usually a small spike in political messaging associated with elections, but 2016 has seen a significant bump, he said. He also said charitable giving is often tied to more hopeful messages, though a negative situation "can also fire up donors." But, Nilsen said, "You can only use a negative message for so long and then people get really turned off. You go back a second or third time with that message ... people want to see progress." However, partisan messaging could become more common as the electorate is more polarized, he said.
The Electronic Freedom Foundation will tie big events to calls for financial support, especially since its program work is often dependent on current events, said Executive Director Cindy Cohn. For example, she said, after the Patriot Act passage, the foundation saw there were law changes that would be problematic and sought support for its work there. "Most people understand, if you want EFF to mobilize our resources to stand up for something, we have to have those resources," she said. Cohn said the group, founded in 1990, has grown through both Republican and Democratic administrations and early indications are the organization, with a $10.3 million budget this year, will continue to grow. "People are nervous about the policies the Trump administration says it wants to put in place, like network neutrality," Cohn said. "That tends to galvanize people."
Echoed Free Press Senior Director-Strategy Tim Karr, "Moments of crisis represent opportunities to engage with your base of activists and members. The Trump administration is a particular moment of crisis" due to its stance on issues such as net neutrality and privacy.
Spiwak called it "par for the course" that some organizations would use the Trump administration as part of their messaging considering the money that was raised during the net neutrality debate challenging the Republican policy agenda. He also said it's not limited to groups opposing Trump administration policies, with the free market-oriented think tank Institute for Policy Innovation having sent out fundraising emails noting its closeness to the Trump transition team. IPI didn't comment.
"As a libertarian group, any new administration brings opportunities and challenges," TechFreedom President Berin Szoka emailed. "We're never going agree with any politician 100%, so it's difficult to say whether an election helps or hurts us overall. It's case by case, issue by issue. On the FCC and FTC front, things are looking up. On surveillance and perhaps free speech, the new environment is challenging."