Fornits
Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform => Hyde Schools => Topic started by: Ursus on May 31, 2007, 12:41:29 AM
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Joe Gauld's book Character First: The Hyde School Difference is published by ICS Press, described as a publication of the Center for Self-Governance.
The Institute for Contempory Studies (which runs ICS Press), based in San Francisco, is described by Media Transparency as a conservative think tank. According to Media Transparency, over a span of 20 years (1985-2005), close to $8.3 million in grants has been funneled into ICS from a small number of conservative philanthropies, the primary one being the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, of Milwaukee, Wisconsin (to the tune of over $5.6 million).
Other philanthropies listed are the John M. Olin Foundation, Sarah Scaife Foundation, the Carthage Foundation, and the William H. Donner Foundation. Remember this last one? They've come up here before in these threads at Fornits. These are the same folks that gave Hyde School $275,000 over the course of 4 years (2001-2005).
The involvement of the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation is of interest as, according to Media Transparency, with "$706 million in assets (2005), the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation of Milwaukee, Wisconsin is the country's largest and most influential right-wing foundation. As of the end of 2005, it was giving away more than $34 million a year [Bradley Foundation 2005 IRS 99-PF]. ...Bradley supports the organizations and individuals that promote the deregulation of business, the rollback of virtually all social welfare programs, and the privitization of government services. As a result, the list of Bradley grant recipients reads like a Who's Who of the U.S.Right." Yo, these are the folks that played in John Birches back yard, and that brought us The Bell Curve.
See also:
Media Transparency's recipient profile on ICS:
http://www.mediatransparency.org/recipi ... ientID=166 (http://www.mediatransparency.org/recipientgrants.php?recipientID=166)
Media Transparency's recipient profile on Hyde School:
http://www.mediatransparency.org/recipi ... entID=3539 (http://www.mediatransparency.org/recipientgrants.php?recipientID=3539)
Media Transparency's funder profile on The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, Inc.
http://www.mediatransparency.org/funder ... funderID=1 (http://www.mediatransparency.org/funderprofile.php?funderID=1)
Note the funder ID # for this last link. Yes, these are the very people that provided the incentive to start the Media Transparency website in the first place.
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Excerpt from Rob Levine's "About this Site," to assist in putting my directly previous post in perspective:
IN JULY OF 1999, I began investigating a local Minneapolis "Think Tank" called the "Center of The American Experiment." Intuitively I had sensed very close connections between the Center, a 501(c)(3) charity, and the Republican Party of Minnesota, which set me out to find what actually was happening there.
To make a long story short, what I discovered was an interconnected web of conservative organizations spanning the gamut from academia to law to religion to publishing to politics, all being funded and coordinated by a relatively small but wealthy group of philanthropies, chief among them the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Though the Center had only received about $310,000 at that time directly from the philanthropies, nearly every one of its speakers and presenters is in some way connected to or funded by this movement.
The Center, far from being a place where "deep thinking" takes place, can most accurately be called a cog in this movement, both producing content for the machine, as well as providing a local outlet for the rest of the movement's content providers, media faces, ideologues, and last but certainly not least, its politicians.
To accurately gauge the impact of these philanthropies, I felt it necessary to catalogue as many of the actual grants made by them as possible. Others have attempted this job. The National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP), which has kindly allowed us to re-use some of their data, reported in 1997 on the grant making activities of 12 foundations over the period 1992 through 1994. That report, titled "Moving A Public Policy Agenda: The Strategic Philanthropy of Conservative Foundations," laid out a fine groundwork for understanding this movement, yet fell short in providing a comprehensive, interactive, open-to-all database that maps out the actual grants, for all to see. People for The American Way accurately described the engine of this movement in the title of another report on the phenomenon called "Buying a Movement."
Since the mere knowledge of who received grants is meaningless without knowing about the recipient organizations and people, this web site has also sought to supply information about both groups. To further users' research, there are four main ways to search the grants database: by grant recipient, by person, by grant purpose, or by a comprehensive All-in-One search...
http://www.mediatransparency.org/about.php (http://www.mediatransparency.org/about.php)
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Joe Gauld's book Character First: The Hyde School Difference is published by ICS Press, described as a publication of the Center for Self-Governance.
The Institute for Contempory Studies (which runs ICS Press), based in San Francisco, is described by Media Transparency as a conservative think tank. According to Media Transparency, over a span of 20 years (1985-2005), close to $8.3 million in grants has been funneled into ICS from a small number of conservative philanthropies, the primary one being the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, of Milwaukee, Wisconsin (to the tune of over $5.6 million).
Other philanthropies listed are the John M. Olin Foundation, Sarah Scaife Foundation, the Carthage Foundation, and the William H. Donner Foundation. Remember this last one? They've come up here before in these threads at Fornits. These are the same folks that gave Hyde School $275,000 over the course of 4 years (2001-2005).
The involvement of the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation is of interest as, according to Media Transparency, with "$706 million in assets (2005), the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation of Milwaukee, Wisconsin is the country's largest and most influential right-wing foundation. As of the end of 2005, it was giving away more than $34 million a year [Bradley Foundation 2005 IRS 99-PF]. ...Bradley supports the organizations and individuals that promote the deregulation of business, the rollback of virtually all social welfare programs, and the privitization of government services. As a result, the list of Bradley grant recipients reads like a Who's Who of the U.S.Right." Yo, these are the folks that played in John Birches back yard, and that brought us The Bell Curve.
See also:
Media Transparency's recipient profile on ICS:
http://www.mediatransparency.org/recipi ... ientID=166 (http://www.mediatransparency.org/recipientgrants.php?recipientID=166)
Media Transparency's recipient profile on Hyde School:
http://www.mediatransparency.org/recipi ... entID=3539 (http://www.mediatransparency.org/recipientgrants.php?recipientID=3539)
Media Transparency's funder profile on The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, Inc.
http://www.mediatransparency.org/funder ... funderID=1 (http://www.mediatransparency.org/funderprofile.php?funderID=1)
Note the funder ID # for this last link. Yes, these are the very people that provided the incentive to start the Media Transparency website in the first place.
Have you actually read this book? It is hardly a well written, incisive, scholarly tome. Gauld writes in a self-congratulatory and self-promoting style. His writing consistently falls far short of intellectual and conceptual depth. Like so much of Hyde, Gauld's writings are thin, superficial and lacking in real substance. At least what goes on at Hyde is consistent with what appears in print. If only consistency were one of Hyde's key virtues!
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Have you actually read this book? It is hardly a well written, incisive, scholarly tome. Gauld writes in a self-congratulatory and self-promoting style. His writing consistently falls far short of intellectual and conceptual depth. Like so much of Hyde, Gauld's writings are thin, superficial and lacking in real substance. At least what goes on at Hyde is consistent with what appears in print. If only consistency were one of Hyde's key virtues!
It is a bit painful to read. And the anecdotal stories, I recognize so many of these people; they are, in a large number of cases, still at Hyde! They were chosen for their roles way way back. I just couldn't imagine that any self-respecting publisher could put out drivel like this, but I figured the forward by Cher had something to do with it.
Finding out the publisher's real agenda, and how ICS fits into the larger scheme of things, plus seeing the Donner Foundation rear up its head once again, made the whole scenario take on a different light.
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Cher sent her kid to Hyde? Was it Chastidy or the boy
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Cher sent her kid to Hyde? Was it Chastidy or the boy
It was the boy, Elijah. I am guessing this was in the early-mid 1990s; Character First: The Hyde School Difference was first published in 1993, and it is my understanding that he was still attending the school at the time.
Hyde didn't seem to change much about Elijah, which is not surprising, since ultimately Hyde usually doesn't change much about anyone, just traumatizes them. About ten years after the book came out, Elijah became a Hare Krishna for awhile.
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Have you actually read this book? It is hardly a well written, incisive, scholarly tome. Gauld writes in a self-congratulatory and self-promoting style. His writing consistently falls far short of intellectual and conceptual depth. Like so much of Hyde, Gauld's writings are thin, superficial and lacking in real substance. At least what goes on at Hyde is consistent with what appears in print. If only consistency were one of Hyde's key virtues!
Oh, it absolutely sucks. It is just so painful to read. And the anecdotal stories, I recognize so many of these people; they are, in a large number of cases, still at Hyde! They were chosen for their roles way way back. I just couldn't imagine that any self-respecting publisher could put out drivel like this, but I figured the forward by Cher had something to do with it.
Finding out the publisher's real agenda, and how ICS fits into the larger scheme of things, plus seeing the Donner Foundation rear up its head once again, made the whole scenario take on a different light.
Here's a compelling exercise: Go to Amazon and try to find anything Joe Gauld has written that's available from Amazon directly. You'll come up with a big, fat ZERO. The only way to get hold of Gauld's pap is to track down people who have access to a copy (I see one for $3.47!).
If you believe that the marketplace of ideas and consumers ultimately determines whose concepts are worth buying, the market speaks loud and clear: virtually no one is interested in what Joe Gauld has to say. The market has determined, convincingly, that there's almost no audience for the stuff that comes out of his mouth and off his pen. If his ideas were so good, how come nobody's buying? Gauld's rhetoric is full of tired cliches and holds little substance. Most people see it for what it is.
This is yet another piece of compelling evidence that Joe Gauld is a a legend in his own mind, but almost no one else's.
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Have you actually read this book? It is hardly a well written, incisive, scholarly tome. Gauld writes in a self-congratulatory and self-promoting style. His writing consistently falls far short of intellectual and conceptual depth. Like so much of Hyde, Gauld's writings are thin, superficial and lacking in real substance. At least what goes on at Hyde is consistent with what appears in print. If only consistency were one of Hyde's key virtues!
Oh, it absolutely sucks. It is just so painful to read. And the anecdotal stories, I recognize so many of these people; they are, in a large number of cases, still at Hyde! They were chosen for their roles way way back. I just couldn't imagine that any self-respecting publisher could put out drivel like this, but I figured the forward by Cher had something to do with it.
Finding out the publisher's real agenda, and how ICS fits into the larger scheme of things, plus seeing the Donner Foundation rear up its head once again, made the whole scenario take on a different light.
Here's a compelling exercise: Go to Amazon and try to find anything Joe Gauld has written that's available from Amazon directly. You'll come up with a big, fat ZERO. The only way to get hold of Gauld's pap is to track down people who have access to a copy (I see one for $3.47!).
If you believe that the marketplace of ideas and consumers ultimately determines whose concepts are worth buying, the market speaks loud and clear: virtually no one is interested in what Joe Gauld has to say. The market has determined, convincingly, that there's almost no audience for the stuff that comes out of his mouth and off his pen. If his ideas were so good, how come nobody's buying? Gauld's rhetoric is full of tired cliches and holds little substance. Most people see it for what it is.
This is yet another piece of compelling evidence that Joe Gauld is a a legend in his own mind, but almost no one else's.
cher ..... Damn Duane hit a peach truck, greg married Cher ... what can I say beyond that. At least Butch had a kid that wails at slide, almost a reincarnation of Duane.
You can buy the books and help support the mission at the Hyde Books Stores!
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woke up this morning with them Statesboro blues
sorry ...... no lyrics
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Ursus, that's some fine research. I highly suggest cataloguing it and putting it together on one website. I would like to see some chain-linked websites on the child abuse institutions with pure research so interested researchers, journalists and such, can easily find information and connect dots.
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Ursus, that's some fine research. I highly suggest cataloguing it and putting it together on one website. I would like to see some chain-linked websites on the child abuse institutions with pure research so interested researchers, journalists and such, can easily find information and connect dots.
Thank you kindly for your appreciative comment! But... I'm afraid the full story cannot be told by research alone! :D
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I thought I had provided a link in one of my initial posts above to the William H. Donner Foundation contribution info, but apparently I omitted spelling it out. So... here it is:
http://old.mediatransparency.org/recipi ... entID=3539 (http://old.mediatransparency.org/recipientgrants.php?recipientID=3539)
Hyde School
Total Grants to Hyde School
Total $ Granted: $ 275,000
For Years: 2005 2004 2002 2001
# Grants: 4
Grants to Hyde School
Date Amount Purpose Funder
1-1-2005......$50,000......General Support.....William H. Donner Foundation
1-1-2004......$25,000......General Support.....William H. Donner Foundation
1-1-2002......$30,000.....No purpose given.....William H. Donner Foundation
1-1-2001....$170,000.....No purpose given.....William H. Donner Foundation
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Hyde-DC has also been the recipient of conservative philanthropies, in this case both the William H. Donner and Foundation and the Walton Family Foundation (Wal-Mart):
http://old.mediatransparency.org/recipi ... entID=3355 (http://old.mediatransparency.org/recipientgrants.php?recipientID=3355)
Hyde Leadership Public Charter School of Washington, DC
Total Grants to Hyde Leadership Public Charter School of Washington, DC
Total $ Granted: $ 228,999
For Years: 2005 2001 1999
# Grants: 3
Grants to Hyde Leadership Public Charter School of Washington, DC
Date Amount Purpose Funder
1-1-2005......$20,000.................Education.....Walton Family Foundation
1-1-2001....$157,249.................Education.....Walton Family Foundation
1-1-1999......$51,750.....No purpose given......William H. Donner Foundation
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http://www.mediatransparency.org/funder ... underID=25 (http://www.mediatransparency.org/funderprofile.php?funderID=25)
Bill Berkowitz
Media Transparency
October 12, 2005
Philanthropy the Wal-Mart way
Will the Walton Family Foundation become a $20 billion tax-exempt opponent of public education?
Today most people think they know the story of Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, owned by the Walton family of Bentonville, Arkansas. Together the Waltons own 39 percent of the corporation that brings discounted merchandise to the public through Wal-Mart and its other stores. The company has more than 5,000 stores (3,400 in the U.S.), is the world's largest private employer, and is the world's largest company based on revenue with more than $280 billion in annual sales.
Wal-Mart's discounted prices, however, come with a heavy price tag. Workers are under-paid and overworked in sweatshops overseas, while their non-union counterparts in the U.S. often cannot afford healthcare for their families. Wal-Mart has been the target of a flood of suits; it is currently the defendant in the largest sex-discrimination class-action lawsuit ever, a suit representing more than 1.5 million women.
When Wal-Mart comes to town, many small businesses invariably close, permanently changing the "civil fabric" of local communities. Worse, the company's bottom line is dependent upon soaking up of hundreds of millions of dollar in taxpayer subsidies extracted from cash-strapped state and county budgets. A May 2004 study by the Washington, DC-based Good Jobs First titled "Shopping for Subsidies: How Wal-Mart Uses Taxpayer Money to Finance Its Never Ending Growth," found that the company has siphoned more than $1 billion in economic development subsidies from state and local governments across the country.
If Wal-Mart was just another gigantic retail chain that was virulently anti-union, niggardly with its benefits, and a drain on the economies of local communities, it would certainly be remarkable but it would pretty much fall into the "business as usual" category. However, Wal-Mart, and the Walton family that runs the company founded by Sam Walton, also does its damage in ways that are more insidious: Through its philanthropic ventures, the Walton Family devotes a significant portion of its holdings to boosting conservative political candidates and a conservative social agenda centered on the privatization of public education.
Sometime in the near future, upon the death of the matriarch of the family, Helen Walton, the Walton Family Foundation could get an infusion of up to $20 billion, making it the largest foundation in the world.
As the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP) points out in its recent report titled "The Waltons and Wal-Mart: Self-Interested Philanthropy,"
"...philanthropic grantmaking and campaign contributions to political action committees (PACs), as well as to candidates, increasingly represents the surplus capital of the wealthy, which they can devote to promoting their sociopolitical worldview."
While wealthy conservatives such as the Koch Family and the Scaife Family have donated large amounts of money to a number of "safe" charities, a good portion of their largesse has flowed to conservative causes -- particularly to the establishment and sustenance of an infrastructure of right wing think tanks, public policy institutes, and media outlets. More recently, George Soros and Peter Lewis have become "very visible progressive donors ... to both charity and politics."
The NCRP report notes that, "corporations and their foundations in 2004 contributed $12 billion in cash and in-kind donations to charities." A "lack of government regulation over the reporting of those contributions," makes it very difficult to track "the true amount of corporate gifts nearly impossible."
It is "even more difficult," the NCRP report maintains, "to uncover the true intent behind many corporate philanthropic projects." While companies benefit in a number of ways when gifts to non-controversial charities are acknowledged and publicized, donations to politically charged campaigns and causes often raise the hackles of both stockholders and customers. In recent years, "little government oversight and a general lack of transparency," have become the spawning grounds for "the misuse and abuse of corporation philanthropy," as witnessed by scandals involving Enron and Tyco International which included components of "questionable board and executive uses of corporate philanthropy."
In its report, the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy studies the intersection between corporate philanthropy and public policy by examining Wal-Mart's "corporate philanthropy" and looking into the "philanthropic efforts" of Sam Walton, and the various philanthropic ventures established by the Walton children and grandchildren.
Sam Walton paves the way
Bentonville, Arkansas is home to the Walton family and the Wal-Mart corporate empire. The family controls "about 39% of Wal-Mart [4.3 billion shares] stock, worth some $90 billion, which makes them by far the richest family in the U.S.," Andy Serwer reported in his extensive profile of the family in the November 15, 2004 edition of Fortune magazine.
According to the NCRP report, "although all family members have had business ventures and wealth independent of their inheritance, the bulk of the family's fortune is managed together by Walton Enterprises." On an annual basis, the Walton's $90 billion "produces dividends upward of $800 million."
When Sam Walton died in 1992, he left "the bulk of his wealth" to his wife and their four children. According to the NCRP, Sam Robson (Rob) Walton is the eldest son and has been Chairman of the Board of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. John, who recently died, was "the activist in the family, working to fund political campaigns for school vouchers and charter schools and directing much of the family's charitable giving." Jim, the youngest son, "is CEO of the Walton's family's financial division, Arvest Holdings, which owns Arvest Bank ... the largest bank in Arkansas." He also "heads" Walton Enterprises and "owns" the local newspaper in Bentonville. Alice apparently is the only Walton child that "does not directly control any of the family enterprises."
With the strong encouragement from his wife, Sam Walton started his family foundation with $1,000 in 1987, Fortune's Andy Server reported. By the time Sam Walton died five years later, he left the foundation $172 million through a trust.
NWANews.com's Mark Minton pointed out in November 2004 that, according to Walton Family Foundation's tax return filed that same month it "held assets worth $733.9 million at the end of 2003." The year before, the Walton Family Foundation (WFF) was worth $791.9.
Giving, Wal-Mart style
While assorted members of the Walton family have established their own philanthropic projects, the Walton Family Foundation and the Wal-Mart Foundations are the flagship foundations. The Walton Family Foundation already gives out more than $100 million a year -- much of it to opponents of public school education -- and it may receive as much as an additional $20 billion when Helen Walton, the family matriarch, leaves this mortal coil. Helen Walton, who currently runs the foundation created by her husband Sam Walton, is in her mid-eighties and her health has declined since being involved in an auto accident five years ago. If the Walton Family Foundation does wind up with the lion's share of her holdings, it will propel it from being the largest foundation in its home state of Arkansas, to the biggest in the world.
Despite donations by Helen Walton to Planned Parenthood, and $5 million for the establishment of Walton Arts Center near the university campus in Fayetteville, Arkansas, the Walton family has been a champion of educational causes, specializing in financing alternatives to public education. It has supported the establishment of charter schools and private school choice. "It gave a string of grants totaling nearly $3 million to the national Knowledge is Power Program, which recruits teachers to create public college prep charter schools in underserved communities," Minter reported. "The gifts included donations to 21 such schools around the country."
Steve Mancini, a spokesperson for the Knowledge is Power Program said that "The Walton family, and particularly John Walton, is building a kind of quiet revolution in public education."
"The importance of the Waltons is not how much money they are giving now, but how much money they will be giving in a few years and where the money will be going," the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy's report states. According to the report, "almost all political contributions made by Wal-Mart Stores Inc. Political Action Committee for Responsive Government, and individual family members are directed toward Republican candidates for public office or Republican political committees. Of $2.1 million given in 2004, $1.6 went to the GOP, while less than $500,000 went to Democrats.
Citing statistics from the Foundation Center, the NCRP report points out that in 2003 the Wal-Mart Foundation (WMF) "was the 51st-largest corporate foundation based on assets and the second-largest based on total giving," figures that includes in-kind and product donations. Newsweek reported that WMF has consistently ranked first in total giving based only on cash contributions. Wal-Mart reported that WMF gave more than $170 million in 2004, up nearly $60 million from two years earlier. According to the company's figures, "more than 90 percent" of its donations go through its local stores, and most are in the $500 - $1,000 range.
While Wal-Mart supports long-time national charities like the Salvation Army and the United Way, its foundation primarily focuses on local grants: "In our experience, we can make the greatest impact on communities by supporting issues and causes that are important to our customers and associates in their own neighborhoods." The upshot of these policies is that the foundation's money never benefits anyone outside the Wal-Mart community.
Although the foundation prohibits the funding of "faith-based organizations whose projects benefit primarily or wholly their membership or adherents," nevertheless, "churches and other houses of worship receive a large percentage of ... grants," according to the report.
Walton Family Foundation: relentlessly conservative
According to its 2003 IRS 990 tax filing, the Walton Family Foundation is smaller and considerably less complex that the Wal-Mart Foundation, and therefore easier to track. In 2003 it was the 63rd-largest foundation in terms of assets ($733+ million) and 25th-largest in terms of giving (nearly $107 million).
According to the report, the WFF concentrates its giving on three spheres: "systematic reform in education" -- focusing on K-12; "the northwest region of Arkansas"; and "the Delta region of Arkansas and Mississippi." All of its spheres of interest include educational concerns.
The WFF concentrates on funding Charter School Initiatives, Educational Options Scholarship Initiatives, School Improvement, and Arkansas Education. Before his death, John Walton was "one of the nation's leading private individual funders of charter schools and voucher initiatives." Interestingly enough the NCRP report claims, "this type of charitable giving does not have to be legally disclosed, making it difficult to put the final price tag on his contributions."
The NCRP, looking into the WFF's penchant for spearheading the privatization movement asks: "Why is the richest family in the world so committed to education, and specifically to school choice, when they themselves mostly attended public school to apparently good effect?"
"Some critics argue that it is the beginning of the ‘Wal-Martization' of education, and a move to for-profit schooling, from which the family could potentially financially benefit. John Walton owned 240,000 shares of Tesseract Group Inc. (formerly known as Education Alternatives Inc.), which is a for-profit company that develops/manages charter and private school as well as public schools."
The WFF provides more than $1 million to each of the following so-called school reform/choice groups: the American Education Reform Council, the Center for Education Reform, Children's Scholarship Fund, Colorado League of Charter Schools, and the Florida School Choice Fund. The Children's Educational Opportunity Foundation of America (also known as Children's First America) received $10.3 million in 2003 and $8.3 in 2002.
The WFF has also supported the Washington, DC-based Black Alliance for Education Options (BAEO - website), an African American-headed group that "works to advertise and market the school voucher movement top African-American families." In October 2002, BAEO received a $600,000 grant from the Bush administration. "We want to change the conversation about parental choice by positively influencing individuals who are resisting parental choice options and get them to reconsider their outlook," Undersecretary of Education Gene Hickok said when he announced the grant. The Black Commentator characterized the BAEO as "the school vouchers propaganda outfit created by the far-right [Harry and Lynde] Bradley Foundation."
In addition to its support for the "school reform" movement, the WFF "funds pro-voucher think tanks like the Goldwater Institute and the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research," People for the American Way (PFAW) has reported. In a short piece, titled "John Walton and the Walton Family Foundation," PFAW pointed out that, "on the legislative front, John Walton personally contributed $2 million to the failed 2000 Michigan voucher initiative as well as $250,000 to California's Prop 174 in 1993, another unsuccessful voucher initiative. Walton also bankrolled the California effort through his American Education Reform Foundation, as well as an unsuccessful 1997 voucher campaign in Minnesota."
John Walton may have passed, but the Walton Family Foundation appears to have an extraordinarily bright future ahead of it. With Helen Walton's $18-20 billion coming down the pike, WFF will be "propel[led] to the top of the list of largest foundations," the NCRP maintains. In addition, as the WFF grows, "so will the scope of its funding," expanding beyond its current three-pronged interests.
The National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy concludes its report by pointing out that "Wal-Mart and the Walton family have only recently begun to translate their vast wealth into political power." While Sam Walton expressed little interest in national politics, his progeny have moved in that direction.
Over the decades, Wal-Mart has incessantly expanded its presence across the US and throughout the world. Over the past few years, it has expanded its presence in the nation's capital. The company hired its first Washington, DC lobbyist in 1998, and in 2000, it opened a Washington, DC office. It currently employs six "external lobbying firms (in addition to its internal operation), ... and [has become] one of the top 20 PAC contributors to federal candidates in the 2004 election cycle."
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http://ncrp.org/press_room/index.asp?Article_Id=73 (http://ncrp.org/press_room/index.asp?Article_Id=73)
For Immediate Release
10/4/2005
Contact: Naomi Tacuyan / Jeff Krehely
202.387.9177 x.17/ x.26
jeff@ncrp.org (http://mailto:jeff@ncrp.org)
Waltons' and Wal-Mart's Charitable Giving Acts as Facade for Conservative Political Agenda & Personal Financial Gain
NCRP report profiles Walton family and Wal-Mart corporate philanthropy that furthers personal and corporate bottom lines
WASHINGTON, D.C.—A new NCRP report reveals more than just charitable intentions in Wal-Mart's seemingly generous, but systematically self-interested philanthropy. The Waltons and Wal-Mart: Self-Interested Philanthropy chronicles the philanthropic and political activities of the Walton family through their family foundation and through their Wal-Mart corporate empire, painting a picture of a family and corporation with increasing financial and political prowess.
"The Waltons' and Wal-Mart's philanthropy deserves more scrutiny than praise. Giving by the family and the corporate foundation exemplifies the family's true priorities and agendas," said Jeff Krehely, deputy director of NCRP. "Not only are they deflecting public scrutiny with their shameless public relations campaigns, they are doing so while simultaneously using quasi-public dollars to advance an agenda of personal enrichment cloaked in philanthropy. We encourage the media, nonprofit advocates, and policy makers to step up oversight efforts of corporate philanthropy, as these vast concentrations of wealth have the potential to change the policy landscape, and not necessarily in the best interests of the public," said Krehely.
With no previous watchdog or media scrutiny, analysis or exposure lent to Wal-Mart's and the Walton family's philanthropy, NCRP's report is the first of its kind, revealing the Waltons' interests in pursuing social issues such as the privatization of public education, and their exponentially growing political influence. Profiled are two Walton-affiliated foundations: the Walton Family Foundation and the Wal-Mart Foundation, with the latter's scattershot giving analyzed in a recent issue of Responsive Philanthropy, NCRP's quarterly.
The Wal-Mart Foundation is the nation's 51st-largest corporate foundation based on its assets, and is ranked first in total giving among corporate givers by Newsweek, having increased its giving by almost 70 percent from 2002 to 2004, with its 2004 giving totaling $170 million. The Walton Family Foundation, on the other hand, is the 25th largest foundation in terms of giving ($106 million in 2003), and maintained an average payout rate of 10 percent over the past five years.
Lambasted for their substandard corporate and labor practices, Wal-Mart's every corporate move has been closely observed by recently created watchdogs such as Wal-Mart Watch and Sprawl Busters. NCRP adds a valuable perspective to Wal-Mart's list of questionable behaviors.
The report, $12.50 for NCRP members and $25 for non-members, is available online at http://www.ncrp.org/index.asp (http://www.ncrp.org/index.asp). Contact http://www.ncrp.org (http://www.ncrp.org) or call (202) 387-9177.
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ADDENDUM /// Wednesday, 10/05/2005, 4:45 p.m.
Contrary to the claims of Wal-Mart spokesperson Melissa O'Brien in a New York Sun article dated 10/5/2005, NCRP never received money from Target Stores or the Target Foundation. In the 1990s, NCRP received several grants from the Dayton-Hudson Foundation, whose parent company owned several retail chains. The Target Corporation emerged from the dissolution of the Dayton-Hudson Corporation. During the transition, NCRP was notified that it would not receive money from the newly formed Target Foundation, largely because of NCRP’s progressive mission and role as a philanthropic reform organization.
We are more than willing to engage the Wal-Mart Corporation in an honest debate about its philanthropy, but we will not tolerate blatant lies being spread about NCRP in an effort to discredit our research programs or publications.
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I thought I had provided a link in one of my initial posts above to the William H. Donner Foundation contribution info, but apparently I omitted spelling it out. So... here it is:
http://www.mediatransparency.org/recipi ... entID=3539 (http://www.mediatransparency.org/recipientgrants.php?recipientID=3539)
Hyde School
Total Grants to Hyde School
Total $ Granted: $ 275,000
For Years: 2005 2004 2002 2001
# Grants: 4
Grants to Hyde School
Date Amount Purpose Funder
1-1-2005......$50,000......General Support.....William H. Donner Foundation
1-1-2004......$25,000......General Support.....William H. Donner Foundation
1-1-2002......$30,000.....No purpose given.....William H. Donner Foundation
1-1-2001....$170,000.....No purpose given.....William H. Donner Foundation
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Hyde-DC has also been the recipient of conservative philanthropies, in this case both the William H. Donner and Foundation and the Walton Family Foundation (Wal-Mart):
http://www.mediatransparency.org/recipi ... entID=3355 (http://www.mediatransparency.org/recipientgrants.php?recipientID=3355)
Hyde Leadership Public Charter School of Washington, DC
Total Grants to Hyde Leadership Public Charter School of Washington, DC
Total $ Granted: $ 228,999
For Years: 2005 2001 1999
# Grants: 3
Grants to Hyde Leadership Public Charter School of Washington, DC
Date Amount Purpose Funder
1-1-2005......$20,000.................Education.....Walton Family Foundation
1-1-2001....$157,249.................Education.....Walton Family Foundation
1-1-1999......$51,750.....No purpose given......William H. Donner Foundation
Two Hyde Schools with very different student bodiess, attracting different conservative philanthropies. It almost seems like William H. Donner found the Charter School first, but switched to the boarding school. Meanwhile, the Charter School turned out to be just the right cuppa tea for WalMarts. Scary. These ain't exactly progressive "points of light."
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Here's an old article about the Canadian wing of the William H. Donner Foundation, that is, the Donner Canadian Foundation.
There is a snipped section out of the middle. I've been unable to find a complete version of this article online. Chances are, you might be able to get it from the Toronto Star pay-per-view archives.
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The Toronto Star
Right-wing causes find a rich and ready paymaster: (http://http://list.digital-copyright.ca/pipermail/action-forum/1997-October/000192.html)
Canada 'too liberal,' so Donner family is taking foundation down a more controversial path
By Thomas Walkom
October 25, 1997
FOUR YEARS ago, a small but influential U.S. family decided that Canada had become simply too liberal.
The Americans were descendants of the late William H. Donner, a wealthy steel magnate who left the United States 39 years ago in a row over income taxes and ended up starting the Donner Canadian Foundation.
The foundation is still controlled by Donner's American heirs. With $134 million in assets and about $3.5 million to distribute annually, it is the third largest private charitable fund in the country.
Only the J.W. McConnell Family Foundation and Charles Bronfman's Chastell Foundation - both of Montreal - are bigger.
For the first 43 years of its existence, the Donner foundation was a typical Canadian charitable fund, donating its money to the kinds of uncontroversial mainstream projects that are generally, and often uncritically, deemed worthy - medical research, prison reform, studies on Canadian unity.
Now it is known as paymaster to the right, a source of ready cash for the favourite causes of the new, market conservatism.
A list of grants approved by the foundation over the past four years reads like a neo-conservative wish list.
- More than $862,000 to the Fraser Institute, the British Columbia anti-union think tank, to, among other things, study unions.
- $1.6 million to the Energy Probe Research Foundation to start up the right-of-centre magazine, The Next City, and the market-oriented Consumer Policy Institute.
- $515,000 to the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies to look at issues such as privatization of the fishery.
- $70,000 to consultant Martin Loney, a vocal critic of employment equity policies, to look at the impact of equity policies.
- $286,000 to the Society for Academic Freedom and Scholarship to fight so-called political correctness at Canadian universities.
- $700,000 to the Society for Advancing Educational Research, an organization interested in establishing charter schools to replace and/or supplement the public education system.
- $400,000 to the Centre for the Study of State and Market to look at how best to privatize state institutions such as the Liquor Control Board of Ontario.
- $185,000 to academics at the University of Toronto to look at ways to privatize the Canada Pension Plan and Ontario's social housing.
- $325,000 to the Work Research Foundation, a group with a "Christian perspective'' on industrial relations, to promote its opposition to labour laws requiring the compulsory payment of union dues.
- $190,000 to the National Foundation for Family Research and Education, an anti-child care organization based in Alberta.
What spawned the shift, says former foundation president Robert Couchman, was the ascendancy of the more right-wing, West Coast branch of the conservative Donner family.
The Donner heirs, all American, hold only four seats on the foundation's nine-member board of directors. But they appoint the remaining five outside Canadian directors.
By 1993 they already controlled an explicitly right-of-centre sister fund, the U.S.-based William H. Donner Foundation. Then, with the West Coast Donners in command, the family decided its Canadian charity should follow a similar path and enlighten people in this country as to the virtues of market discipline.
Patrick Luciani, now acting executive director of the foundation, openly acknowledges the shift.
"We changed emphasis in 1993. It had been a classic Canadian foundation, quite liberal. But the Donner family saw the country going through a fiscal crisis and they wanted to fund projects that looked at more competition and less government. . . .
"You don't want to do the same projects over and over again. You want to make a difference.''
Recalcitrant board members were replaced with those more amenable to a muscular right-of-centre approach. (The Donner board now includes former Canadian ambassador to Washington Allan Gotlieb and Saturday Night editor Ken Whyte).
The foundation also parted company with Couchman, former head of Metro's Family Services Association.
"I left largely because of that turn to the right,'' says Couchman, now a consultant based in Yukon. "The foundation was always fairly conservative. We did fund organizations like the Fraser Institute. But when I left it was clear the family was interested much more in moving into ideological issues.''
Now, four years later, Donner has become notorious within the small world of charitable foundations and their recipients.
Writing in the leftish cultural magazine Canadian Forum, journalist Krishna Rau refers to it as "the new sugar daddy for the right.''
Patrick Johnston, president of the Canadian Centre for Philanthropy, an umbrella organization for charities, chooses his words more carefully.
"In terms of having a very clear ideological position and shifting its funding toward that position, it is unique in Canada,'' Johnston says.
But, he adds, the Donner foundation may not stay unique. As governments get out of the business of funding research into public policy, the way is open to a more American system, one where wealthy individuals operating through private foundations determine the country's intellectual and political direction.
..... snip ........
But in part, Donner's unique position stems from the early recognition by conservatives that key political struggles must first be fought on the plane of ideas.
In doing so, the new conservatives took advantage of two elements of the Canadian landscape - the ease with which politically motivated organizations can qualify for charitable status under the federal Income Tax Act and the growing army of underemployed academics and others anxious for research money.
Canada is chock-a-block with dubious charities, from the near-penniless Red Maple Foundation, publisher of the small left-wing This Magazine, to the corporate-funded, right-wing Fraser Institute to the country's most elite private schools. All have won the right from Ottawa to issue tax-deductible charitable receipts.
In effect, the ability to issue such receipts allows organizations engaged in what is euphemistically known as political and economic education to have their activities subsidized by all taxpayers.
It also makes them eligible for money from bodies such as the Donner foundation that are allowed to fund only registered charities.
All come together in a pact of mutual convenience. The charitable sponsor, knowing the result it wants, will favour the underemployed academic or researcher sure to produce such a result. The charity can simply play the role of middleman, as the University of Toronto does for the Society for Academic Freedom and Scholarship.
Or the dubious charity can play a more active role by attracting to its bosom the kinds of researchers and academics sure to produce the results that will please potential donors.
The results (which, not coincidentally, tend to match the values and ideology of the sponsor) are then trumpeted to the general public through media which, by and large, accept uncritically anything a self-styled think tank produces.
"We aren't a mainstream Canadian foundation in that we do safe projects,'' says Luciani. "We fund projects that are a little more controversial.''
Luciani is careful to point out that the Donner's three staff members, who propose potential projects to the foundation's board and who are hired by that board, are all Canadian. He says the U.S. members of the board rely on the advice of the outside Canadian directors (who, he acknowledges, the Americans appoint).
And he notes that Donner has not abandoned entirely more traditional charitable and academic projects. For example, it is funding a five-year $440,000 project by the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research to help troubled teenaged girls in Montreal and has donated $183,000 to the Clarke Institute of Psychiatry to look at homelessness.
Carleton University is receiving $209,000 to study Canada-Russia relations and the Toronto Addiction Research Foundation $147,000 to look at the effect of the Niagara Falls Casino.
Nor must all applicants hew to a hard-right political line. In 1995, for example, the foundation gave $143,552 to University of Toronto professor Don Moggridge, an economic historian of Keynesian bent, to write a biography of the late Canadian economist Harry Johnson.
Still, there is a definite political flavour to the new Donner foundation - an emphasis on projects that promote a minimal role for government while maximizing the importance of free markets, private ownership and economic individualism. A look through the foundation's recent annual reports, for instance, shows these more libertarian projects receive by far the bulk of Donner's funding.
All of this probably would have been looked at favourably by William Henry Donner, the man who began the foundation.
In his 1953 obituary, the New York Times describes Donner as a multimillionaire, an associate of the great capitalist barons of early 20th century America and a man who, in 1938, abandoned his native land for the more congenial political climes of Canada and Switzerland "after a dispute with the federal (U.S.) government over income tax matters.''
As Luciani says: "The philosophy of this foundation is to encourage self-reliance, not look to government to solve problems.''
Contents copyright © 1996, 1997, The Toronto Star.
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Here's another piece from around the same time, perhaps the same day. It originally had the article from my previous post appended at the end.
I've no clue as to its original source; it was copied onto one of those news lists.
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NOTORIOUS FOUNDATION FUNDS TORONTO HOMELESS STUDY (http://http://list.digital-copyright.ca/pipermail/action-forum/1997-October/000193.html)
A Toronto conference, Mental Illness and Pathways Into Homelessness, on November 3, organized by the Clarke Institute of Psychiatry, is funded by the Donner Canadian Foundation.
Today, Saturday Oct 25, the Toronto Star, Canada's largest daily newspaper, stated that:
"... Donner has become notorious within the small world of charitable foundations and their recipients."
(Donner) "...donated $183,000 to the Clarke Institute of Psychiatry to look at homelessness."
"...it is known as paymaster to the right."
"...an emphasis on projects that promote a minimal role for government while maximizing the importance of free markets, private ownership and economic individualism."
Appended at the bottom is the bulk of that newspaper article, entitled:
"Right-wing causes find a rich and ready paymaster"
The Nov 3 conference focuses solely on mental illness as a cause of homelessness. No mention is made of the fact that 2 years ago the Ontario govrnment cut welfare by 21.6%, stopped the construction of 400 affordable housing projects, cancelled funding to shelters for abused women and has since thrown thousands off the welfare rolls, started fingerprinting the poor and introduced workfare.
Two weeks ago, Toronto officials reported a 67% increase in use of Toronto's homeless shelters in one year. Is that the result of a 67% increase in mental illness?
The conference's diagnosis seems to precedes an examination of the patient. Certainly our society is ill. There are thousands of homless people now sleeping on our streets. Is that because they are crazy or is that because they have no money and because there is no affordable housing?
Here is the official blurb on the conference:
The aim of this conference is to present the findings of the "Pathways into Homelessness Project" in the context of prior policy work in Toronto. Focused primarily on single adult shelter users, the project was designed to gather information about the circumstances regarding housing loss, prevalence of mental and physical illness, characteristics of the population and, for some people, first person narratives. The conference will also feature a comparison of the efforts made in New York and Toronto to address homelessness. The day will consist of didactic presentations and discussion periods. Audience input will will be integrated into a summary of the conference proceedings.
You can reach the organizer of this conference, George Tolemiczenko, at gtolomic at hsru.clarke-inst.on.ca
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Right-wing causes find a rich and ready paymaster:
Canada 'too liberal,' so Donner family is taking foundation down a more controversial path
The Donner Canadian Foundation was also a major funder of the 2003 "study" (http://http://www.fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=43&t=26801&start=15#p360623) touted as evidence of the efficacy of the Hoffman Institute's Quadrinity Process in "mediating effects of forgiveness and spirituality." Lol.
Joe Gauld is currently heavily involved in bringing the Quadrinity Process to Hyde (http://http://www.fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=43&t=26801), perhaps also in marketing it, judging by the number of parents, staff, and alumni who have been pressed into forking over roughly $4000 for an 8-day journey in undoing the "negative love syndrome" allegedly imprinted on them by their parents.
Gotta wonder: Is that "forgiveness and spirituality" -- presuming you actually "get it"* -- supposed to assist in undoing the psychological damage brought about by a potentially toxic "Hyde experience?" :D
* Hoffman Institute CEO Charles "Raz" Ingrasci has had a lifetime career of key executive and training positions in "self-improvement seminar companies," which include est and Lifespring.