For Any of You With Deep Pockets

From the Center for Progressive Leadership,

Match and Surpass

An Aggressive Strategy for Developing a Pipeline for a Progressive Farm Team

Progressive leaders are becoming increasingly aware of the need to make long-term investments in a 501(c)(3) think-tank and message infrastructure. We are realizing how incredibly effective institutions like the Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute, and American’s for Tax Reform have been at reframing politics in the eye of the public and the media.

Less well known, however, is the fact that in addition to a massive think-tank infrastructure, conservatives have also built a $25 million 501(c)(3) recruitment and training infrastructure that has provided a pipeline for their future political leaders since the late 1970s.

For 25 years, conservatives’ 501(c)(3) leadership pipeline has been entirely unchallenged. There has simply never been a national progressive commitment to investing the resources necessary to create a long-term progressive political leadership development infrastructure.

We cannot afford to let conservatives continue to dominate the arena of long-term leadership development. Progressives must build a 501(c)(3) infrastructure for identifying, recruiting, and training leaders at every level from high school and college students to activists and candidates.

Rather than simply playing catch-up, we must learn from the successes and limitations of the conservative infrastructure, and then innovate to create programs that will soon outpace conservatives. With strategic investments in a far-reaching 501(c)(3) training infrastructure, we can build a pipeline of inspired and inspiring progressive leaders who will reshape American politics.

I. The Conservative’s Infrastructure

Starting in the late 1970s, conservatives built a series of 501(c)(3) training institutions dedicated to developing their new political leadership. Led by the Leadership Institute and the Young America’s Foundation, these nonprofit organizations developed a comprehensive pipeline for supporting emerging conservative political leaders.

Every year, conservatives pour over $25 million dollars into these 501(c)(3) organizations that provide political training for up-and-coming conservative political leaders. After 25 years of conservative leadership development investments, there are over 80 members of Congress, more than 220 state legislators, and thousands of activists, including Ralph Reed, Grover Norquist, and Karl Rove, who were trained in these programs.

With the capacity to build endowments, fundraise from foundations, and provide individual donors with tax-deductions, these 501(c)(3) training institutions are able to look far beyond any single election cycle and make long-term investments in conservative leaders early in their political careers.

II. An Opportunity to Overtake Conservatives

Over the past two years, the Center for Progressive Leadership has closely studied the conservatives’ training programs, reviewed their curriculum, and scrutinized their recruitment and training methods.

● The Center for Progressive Leadership is the nation’s first progressive political training institute ●

Despite all of their successes, the conservatives’ infrastructure has several vulnerabilities that provide progressives with an opportunity to develop a leadership pipeline that will match and surpass conservatives’ efforts. Unchallenged success in long-term political leadership development has reduced the pressure for conservatives to innovate and improve their programs and operational models.

Conservative training programs have been slow to adopt new training models coming out of the corporate sector and have underinvested in recruitment of new leaders who are not currently engaged in politics. In addition, conservative training institutions continue to run their programs from Washington, which limits their capacity to provide long-term support for trainees and develop a stronger state-based infrastructure.

These vulnerabilities create an opportunity for progressives to match and surpass conservative training programs by investing in targeted recruitment and training programs for emerging political leaders.

III. The Challenge for Progressives

Progressives must move aggressively to create a 501(c)(3) political leadership infrastructure that builds on our unique political assets and challenges the conservative pipeline for political leadership.

Fund a 501(c)(3) Infrastructure: Political organizations play a critical role in the progressive leadership pipeline, but PACs, 527s, and Party organizations are required to focus on the current election cycle. This leads to a paucity of programs for supporting emerging progressive leaders and underinvestment in recruitment and early career support for minority and women leaders.

Conservatives understand the limitations of political organizations (and the financial advantages of 501(c)(3)s), and have built a well-funded 501(c)(3) infrastructure for long-term leadership development. Through their 501(c)(3) infrastructure, conservatives are able to recruit, train, and support candidates years before they are ready to run for office, activists early in their political careers, and students as they are forming their political views.

We must commit to raising the resources required to build a parallel 501(c)(3) recruitment and training infrastructure to develop the next generation of progressive political leaders.

Build from the States: Unlike the top-down conservative approach, progressives must create a state-based organizational structure by developing a strong base of staff, volunteers, advisors, and donors in key target states that have the potential for a surge in progressive leadership.

Focus on New Leadership: Progressives must invest heavily in engaging new leadership by drawing from diverse communities and targeting leaders who are not traditionally involved in electoral politics. In addition to engaging young progressives, we must provide progressive leaders in the business sector, military, legal world, nonprofit sector, and government with a bridge to political careers.

Innovate and Apply New Training Strategies: Fellowship training and “executive coaching” models have been used to great success in the business and nonprofit sectors. These training models maximize training impact and ensure long-term support for trainees. By incorporating these methods into progressive training programs, we have an opportunity to maximize the impact of our training dollars.

Develop Messengers: Several progressive organizations are currently dedicated to redeveloping the platform for progressive values and messaging. A progressive leadership training infrastructure can contribute to these efforts by helping to build a cadre of effective and inspiring messengers who connect directly with voters.

IV. A Call to Action

By the end of this decade, the Center for Progressive Leadership aims to catalyze the development of a robust 501(c)(3) political leadership pipeline in 20 states with at least $25 million in funding and thousands of newly engaged and successful progressive candidates, youth, and activists each year.

We need your support to build this pipeline. The Center for Progressive Leadership is working to assemble the team of progressive leaders, organizations, and donors that will drive this vision forward. We are arranging meetings of key progressive leaders across the country to establish a national commitment to building this 501(c)(3) leadership development infrastructure.

If you would like to be a part of creating the infrastructure to support the next generation of progressive leaders, please contact me at Peter.Murray@ProgressLeaders.org or 202-365-5472.