Front Page > Issues > 2006> September

Would you let someone give your money away?

The

War

Within

By Bonnie Tinker

Most of us progressive types think it’s wrong to personally have too much money. We contribute our time and money generously to a whole host of wonderful causes. This is good. It is also an individual decision about how to use wealth.

Once you have money or other wealth, you do have the individual right and responsibility to decide what to do with it. The individual act of philanthropy is a strange contradiction for people who believe in community action. Thirty years ago, Leslie Brockelbank and Charles Gray, a couple at the time and both serious activists on a number of issues, discovered themselves with a significant inheritance. For a while they quietly gave it away here and there, and then they realized that deciding how to give the money really wasn’t their job. As a part of a community that believed in economic justice and collective decision making they decided that giving away wealth was a community job.

In 1976 Leslie and Charles invited a group of fellow activists, mostly from the Eugene area, to a meeting on the McKenzie River to decide what to do with half a million dollars. Their only stipulation was that the money had to be given away within five years. McKenzie River Gathering Foundation (MRG) was born with a guaranteed lifetime of only a few years. A decision making structure was created, incorporating additional activists, to make administrative and grant making decisions.

Within several years this new group decided to use the momentum of the original gift to create an ongoing foundation by raising additional funds. I came into the “Portland Caucus”, which shared decision making with the “Eugene Caucus” in 1978, and later served as staff for the Portland office from 1979-1980.

The original gathering of activists had assembled a fairly diverse group to make the ongoing decisions. We worked by consensus which meant that serious political discussion was required for every decision. Three of the hot topics I remember were: Is “social service” a part of a “radical” movement? Is gay Liberation — that’s what we called it back then — a part of a progressive movement, or is it just an expression of social deviation? How can a group of activists whose experience is primarily with predominately white peace and environmental organizing create a foundation that promotes racial equality?

Throughout the years MRG has successfully addressed all of these issues. Social service projects that have a definite social change component, such as Bradley-Angle House and other projects serving people affected by domestic violence, are among the grantees. MRG was one of the first foundations in the Pacific Northwest to make grants to fledgling LGBT (lesbian, gay, bi and trans) groups, and the foundation now responds to a wide range of social change concerns.

The discussions that led to these results were not just theoretical. They happened primarily around intense discussions of making grants to small grassroots groups, all of whom desperately needed cash. Many of the groups were personally known by those making the funding decision.

While this apparent conflict of interest between grant giving and grant receiving may seem insurmountable, it has actually proven to be one of the enduring strengths of McKenzie River Gathering. Most of the people making granting decisions know how it feels to need money. Through MRG’s unique grantmaking process, they also have a deep appreciation of the importance of other parts of the movement for social change.

Leslie Brockelbank, speaking with me at MRG’s 30th Anniversary party in August, said she thinks one of the most unique things about MRG is Presentation Day. As a part of every granting cycle a group of the applicants are invited to present their request to the MRG grantmaking committee and the other applicants. In the early days, all finalists were invited to this event, but today the group is limited is primarily new applicants, or groups that haven’t been to Presentation Day for a few years.
Throughout the years, the Presentation Days have nurtured strong personal networks between very different grassroots groups. Hearing the different requests seems to reduce the sense of competition for scarce funds. When a group gets less than they had hoped, they are well aware of other needs that were met.

Another important part of community building at MRG has been the determination to make a practical commitment to working against racism, and to raising the consciousness of all applicants that racism is of major concern for all of us. In about 1980, MRG’s board decided that the application would include a demographic grid asking each applicant to list the actual numbers of Board, staff, and volunteers according to sex and racial identity. Since then the grid has expanded to include sexual orientation, disabilities, and people with low-income. For many groups, these divisions were invisible until they were asked to put them on paper. Once they are visible, groups can look at their real diversity and lack of diversity. The grantmaking committee evaluates the information, assuring that grants go to groups that take diversity seriously and that are led by women, queers, racial minorities, people with disabilities and low-income people.

Over the years more than 350 grassroots social change leaders have worked with MRG to make grants totally more than four million dollars to 800 groups in the areas of: Human Rights, Race and Racism, Environmental Protection, Women’s rights, Farmworkers Rights, Lesbian, Gay Bi and Trans Rights, Immigration Rights, Peace, International Solidarity, Media and Economic Justice. Another five million dollars has been distributed through donor-advised grantmaking supporting a progressive vision of social change.

Last year the activist granting committees distributed $360,000 in grants, and next year they expect to distribute more than $420,000. These funds are provided by over 500 current donors; 17 grassroots activists sit on three grantmaking committees that will make these grants, and ten more community leaders sit on other MRG committees.

MRG is not only a sustainable community fund; it is a growing community fund. It is possible because in the last 30 years people contributing from $5 to $500,000 have put their money where their mouth is. They give their money to the community to distribute. That’s a real belief in social change.

Bonnie Tinker is the Executive Director of Love Makes A Family, Inc., one of the many grateful recipients of MRG funding. She encourages you to go to www.MRGfoundation.org to find out how you can become a contributor, a volunteer, or can apply for funds to support your social change work.