I Just Came from the Opening Session of Move to Amend's Portland Convergence - This is Important.

[dballance]

45. Here is the funding answer. No Major Corporate Donors.

Last edited Sun May 5, 2013, 02:24 PM - Edit history (4)

The largest donation to MTA so far has been from the Levinson Foundation: http://www.levinsonfoundation.org (click on Recent Grants to see grantees). There are no corporate sponsors or donors - as in no major corporations or Super-PACs. The rest of their funding is from individual contributions which average $40. The list of people registered with MTA is just under 300,000. That's not the number of donors. It includes anyone who wants to get notifications and newsletters and people who want to volunteer.

It was a good, and relevant question. I'm pleased with the answer.

On Edit: The Levinson Foundation's site states their largest grants are $30,000. So, even if they contributed that much to MTA that is a not an amount that would buy undue influence. Also, I've worked for a non-profit, grant-making organization like the Levnison Foundation. Grants are awarded on the strength of the applicant's grant application and, perhaps, interviews with the director/officers of an organization. It really depends on the size of the grant. After a grant is awarded there is no participation by the granting organization in the management of those funds. The grantee is trusted to use the funds in the manner in which they described in their application. Again, that would vary base on the size of a grant and if grants have some annual funding component. In the case of large grants that might be funded over multiple years it wouldn't be unusual for a granting organization to do audits.

For a $30,000 one-time grant it would be a "write the check and walk away" grant.

On Edit 3: While the Levinson Foundation is, itself, a corporation I didn't think I needed to point out the difference between small 501c3 non-profit organizations like the Levinson Foundation and larger organizations like GE, Monsanto, BofA, GM, Exxon, etc. The large entities I mentioned pay little or no taxes yet have undue influence on our government and law due to their money and lobbying. A grant-making organization like the Levinson Foundation is not corrupting our elections and laws with lobbying.