WHAT IS THE SOURCE OF THE PROGRESSIVE MOVEMENTS DECLINE: NONPROFIT CAREERISM OR FOUNDATION-FUNDED FRAGMENTATION?
What has brought about the decline of the progressive movement? Not surprisingly, given the outcome of the 2004 elections, that’s become a hotly debated issue. According to one activist, “nonprofit careerism” is partly to blame. In the Dec. 27 issue of the liberal newsletter Counterpunch, regular contributor Michael Donnelly writes that the decline of progressive activism was accelerated by the rise of “corporate-funded grantmaking foundations” and the development of a collective, “nonprofit sector” identity sometime in the 1970s. Now, he says, citing Independent Sector’s Panel on the Nonprofit Sector, Congress and the sector establishment are out to reign in “real, bottom-up grassroots, anti-corporate groups.” Once a cause morphs into a permanent part of the public scene with careers at stake, the movement is over, Donnelly says – concluding that the “sector” needs to go. Meanwhile, James Piereson of the John M. Olin Foundation argues that the decline in liberalism grew out of the ’60
