30 • THE CHRONICLE OF PHILANTHROPY
End the ‘Witch Hunt’ Approach
at Catholic Antipoverty Fund
THE SPIRIT of the medieval Inquisition is not yet dead.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has since the early
part of the decade been tightening the guidelines that govern
grant making by the Catholic
Campaign for Human Development, a foundation that distributes about $8-million a year to
some 250 grass-roots organizations that run antipoverty programs and fight for economic
justice. Those dollars have been
a major source of support for
community-organizing groups
throughout the country.
Under pressure from conservative bishops and Catholic groups like the American
Life League and Reform CCHD
Now, the campaign started requiring its grantees to sign a
statement that they would not
run programs or projects that
contradict Catholic doctrine.
But it added an even tougher
restriction more recently, telling
groups over the past couple of
years that it would not provide
money to them if they joined coalitions or had even the remotest association with organizations that support birth control,
same-sex marriage, or other activities that are not closely in
line with official Catholic teachings. The campaign, with the
help of conservative Catholic
groups, is intensely scrutinizing
organizations they already have
supported to make sure they follow the guidelines.
So far, at least nine groups
have lost support, The New York
Times reports. Other groups
have been so scared off by the
rules that they decided not to
apply for new money. And several community organizations
that had been approved to receive grants were nevertheless
THE CHRONICLE OF
PHILANTHROP Y
EDI TORIAL AND BUSINESS OFFICES
1255 Twenty-Third Street, N. W.
Washington, D.C. 20037, (202) 466-1200
World Wide Web: http://philanthropy.com
e-mail: editor@philanthropy.com
REPRINT DEPARTMENT
(800) 259-0470
SUBSCRIPTIONS AND CHANGE OF ADDRESS
Post Office Box 16359, North Hollywood,
CA 91615 61054-0743
(800) 728-2819
e-mail: subscriptions@philanthropy.com
PHILAN THROP Y CAREERS (202) 466-1230
e-mail: jobs@philanthropy.com
CORPORATE CLIEN T SALES OFFICES
New York (212) 758-5293
Washington (202) 466-1212
e-mail: display@philanthropy.com
Member, Audit Bureau of
Circulations. The Chronicle
reserves the right not to
accept an advertiser’s
order. Only publication
of an advertisement shall constitute
acceptance.
Publications Mail Agreement No:
40612608. Return undeliverable
Canadian issues to: Bleuchip
International, P.O. Box 25542, London,
ON N6C 6B2, Canada.
Digital edition provided
by Texterity
( http://www.texterity.com)
denied money by local bishops,
who must approve all grants
awarded in their dioceses.
The actions of the conservative bishops who control the U. S.
Conference of Catholic Bishops
have attracted criticism from
more-liberal bishops, priests,
lay employees of the conference, and officials of grass-roots
groups who disagree with and
are embarrassed by the changes at the campaign.
The strict guidelines governing the associations of grantees
came after conservative leaders tried to shut down the campaign altogether. Supporters
quietly mobilized to preserve
Guilt by association,
the old McCarthy
tactic, has now taken
root in the Catholic
Bishops campaign.
the antipoverty work, but they
were forced as part of a compromise to accept the restriction on
alliances with groups that oppose Catholic teachings.
It is one thing to demand fealty to church principles from
grant recipients; it is quite another to insist that these groups
cannot in any way be associated
with other organizations that do
not adhere to the church’s teachings. Guilt by association, the
old McCarthy tactic, has now
taken root in the campaign.
The campaign’s director,
Ralph McCloud, put it succinct-
ly, telling The New York Times:
“We can’t in any way have
groups who are collaborating
with other groups whose main
focus is objectionable or con-
trary to Catholic teachings. ...
We’re upfront with that.”
What this means in prac-
tice is that an organization like
Compañeros, a small nonprofit
in southern Colorado that helps
Hispanic immigrants, has lost
its money from the campaign—
some $30,000—because it re-
fuses to quit the Colorado Im-
migrant Rights Coalition, as
the Times reported. One of the
coalition’s members advocates
gay rights.
Surprisingly, few people in
the nonprofit world have public-
ly opposed the campaign’s tight-
ened guidelines and the pres-
sure exercised on it by conser-
vative Catholic organizations.
Many community-organizing
groups and their networks de-
pend on local Catholic church-
es so they have been reluctant
to speak out. Other organizing
groups have also been quiet, in
part because they believe that
the Catholic group’s policy is ir-
relevant to their constituencies
and needs. Progressive nonprof-
it organizations in general, as
so often is the case, don’t seem
anxious to engage in the issue,
preferring instead to stay on the
sidelines.
Pablo Eisenberg, a regular
Chronicle contributor, is a senior
fellow at the Georgetown Public
Policy Institute. His e-mail address is pseisenberg@verizon.
net.
MARK LIZ TLER
THE CHRONICLE OF PHILAN THROPY
“Loved the proposal!
How quickly can you adapt it for a screenplay?”
Charities Could Face Backlash
Over Corporate Marketing Ties
should we allow the market to
determine what charities get
the most support?
The other danger of these
marketing campaigns is they let
shoppers check charity off their
to-do list. Since people give at
the supermarket counter when
they buy products that benefit
charitable causes, they figure
they don’t need to write a check.
Reducing direct donations is
the unintended consequence of
these campaigns, and it could
not have been otherwise: Marketers created these programs
and promoted them to empha-
Continued from Page 29
These marketing
campaigns let
shoppers check
charity off
their to-do list.
size how easy it is to help charity by purchasing products consumers wanted anyway. Proponents of this strategy argue
that they are getting donations
from people who would never
write a check, but nobody has
proved that.
Nor is it true or a good thing
that corporate marketing deals
make giving easy. In the glare
of the supermarket, we are unlikely to think about the poor
and the hungry or the decaying
environment or the collapse of
our educational system. Sure,
we can buy Yoplait yogurt, but
is buying the yogurt, licking
the lids, putting them in an envelope, and mailing them to the
company to benefit breast-can-cer charities any easier than
making a monthly donation on
your credit card—something
that is more sustainable (and
ultimately more sanitary)?
Sooner or later, consumers
will figure out they are being
duped, and that will cause a
major backlash for both charities and companies.
Misleading consumers comes
in several guises. Using logos
and calling them a seal of approval and not an endorsement,
as Sierra Club does with Clo-rox’s Green Works products, is
deceptive at best.
Worse is leading consumers to
believe they have made a donation through a purchase, when
in reality the donation is not
generated until the purchaser
goes online and provides personal information. Under this
scenario, either the product
company gets increased sales
and free consumer data or it
gets increased sales and doesn’t
have to make a donation. That’s
a double win for the corporation
but not for the consumer or the
charity.
When we attach charity to
consumerism—something that
is based on serving individual
needs and not fulfilling social
goods—we become inured to
true suffering.
Cause marketing may make
a small dent in feeding the
hungry, paying for medical
research, or healing some of
America’s other big problems.
But in achieving small goals,
it does more serious harm by
obfuscating the problems that
charities were created to solve.
Hunger is an issue of joblessness, for example. Buying
a bracelet from Starbucks isn’t
going to solve either of those.
Mara Einstein, an associate
professor of marketing at Queens
College, is author of “
Compassion Inc.: How Corporate America Blurs the Line Between What
We Buy, Who We Are, and Those
We Help.”
