Nonprofit organizations have a vital role to play in public policy. Think tanks shape political opinion, public charities help revitalize neighborhoods, and advocacy groups tackle some of our society’s toughest problems.
For one reason or another, that good work often seems to place a target on nonprofit groups.
This summer, we got word that an anonymous funder had hired opposition-research firm MB Public Affairs to dig up dirt on a nonprofit called the Los Angeles Alliance for New Economy (LAANE). LAANE is one of the country’s leading advocates for good jobs and a healthy environment. For more than 18 years, they have helped dozens of organizations across the country shape innovative policies to reduce poverty and pollution. They’ve done their work quietly and without controversy, and have had an enormous impact, not just in Los Angeles, but across the country.
The late Senator Ted Kennedy once described LAANE as “a champion for economic justice and a strong voice for those in need.” Hardly the stuff villains are made of.
We don’t know whose scheme it was to send open-records requests to more than 70 public officials, demanding all information about their contacts with LAANE. We don’t know if the goal was to intimidate those officials into discontinuing their work with LAANE, or to scare LAANE into shelving a particular initiative, or if it was just the first step in a larger attack against LAANE’s record and credibility.
Two dozen nonprofits drafted an open letter denouncing the anonymous attacker and standing in support of LAANE, and more than a thousand individuals have signed a petition calling on the anonymous funder to reveal itself and face the same public scrutiny it was bringing upon LAANE.
The groups and individuals who stood up for LAANE all said that it's time for LAANE’s attacker to step into the light of day. But we think it’s also time to take our hats off to LAANE, an organization whose sterling work made them a target, and who’s facing this attack with honesty and openness.