Money For Change: Social Movement Philanthropy at the Haymarket People's Fund

4. Inherited-Wealth Donors

4 INHERITED-WEALTH DONORS F UNDRAISING IS THE LIFEBLOOD OF ANY PUBLIC FOUNDATION, AND Haymarket People's Fund is no exception. People with inherited wealth and leftist politics were the original founders of Haymarket , and the popular image of its donors continues to be of progressive wealthy people. Several donors have appeared regularly in media articles and on television talk shows over the past two decades. 1 The information I was able to obtain supportS the commonly held view that most of this public foundation's money comes from people with wealth. In 1990, between one-half and two-thirds of total donations came from gifts over $10,000. In that year, when total donations were at $719,109, fifteen donors gave amounts in that category: three donors gave $50,000 each; two more gave $30,000 each; one gave $20,000; five gave $10,000; and the remaining four gave between $10,000 and $20,000 each. As I finished my fieldwork in 1991 and 1992, the proportion of large donations to total donations held at similar levels.2 While about half of Haymarket 's approximately five hundred donors in the early 1990s gave less than $100, these relatively small gifts made up only about 1 percent of total contributions.3 These figures show that a small number of sizable gifts have formed the core of Haymarket's total donations. Since I did not have access to confidential information about how much Copyrighted Material 62 Chapier4 money particular individuals gave to Haymarket, I cannot be certain that the twenty-five or so donors I came to know by name---or the nine I interviewed in depth-were among the highest givers, though in several cases they told me they were, or others told me. Of these twenty-five, as I have said, all were white, and eighteen were women. All seemed about the same age, from mid-thirties to mid-forties. According to how staff described them and how they described themselves and one another, these twentyfive seemed typical in race, gender, and age. I interviewed six women and three men. In this chapter, I focus on what wealthy donors told me about why they gave to Haymarket and what it meant to them. I look also at the conferences for people with wealth that they planned and attended and that I often heard were the main source ofdonations to the Fund. I also begin here the stoty of how and why Haymarket began to change its methods of fundraising in a direction some people there called "more political," meaning more consistent with the organization's mission and goals. One reason donors gave for their continued connection to Haymarket was the help and support they found there from staff and other donors in dealing with the dilemma of having both inherited wealth and progressive politics-what they sometimes called "living the contradiction." Haymarket conferences for people with wealth and other donor events provided support for the wealthy to claim identities as progressive people and enabled them to form valued relationships with other wealthy people who shared their politics. Through these identities and relationships, donors learned to use their money to put their political beliefs into practice. Donors also appreciated the respect they found at Haymarket, where people saw them not simply as sources ofmoney but also as actively engaged in work for social change.4 Some donors talked about the importance of their own identities as activists in solidarity with other activists working for social change. Being able to claim such an identity may be important in general for affluent people who give money to support social movement groups (Buechler 1993, 225, 228, 231; Silver 1994).5 I spent several hours talking with one ofHaymarket's most generous and longtime donors for whom connecting progressive politics with giving was important. Copyrighted Material INHERITED-WEALTH DONORS 63 I don't really know where my politics come from, but I always wanted to give my money back ro the community because I believed it came from the community.... I knew I didn't need this money. This thinking reflects a point ofview I heard often as part ofwhat it meant for Haymarket donors to give for "Change, Not Charity." As the 1988-89 Haymarket annual report put it: "Giving to others what belongs to you is charity. Giving to others what belongs to them is justice." In 1968 the...