There’s a new, deep-pocketed liberal donor in town.
It’s called the Civic Participation Action Fund, and it’s run by a man named Stephen McConnell in Washington. Formed last year with $50 million, it’s donated to at least three different Democrat-aligned super political action committees this year, including $1.5 million to mobilize immigrant voters for Hillary Clinton.
The fund’s money comes from the Atlantic Philanthropies, which has given away more than $7 billion since its creation by a billionaire retailer in 1982. Atlantic affiliates have long backed left-leaning policy initiatives, from opposing the death penalty to advocating for President Barack Obama’s health-care law, but they’ve rarely supported or opposed candidates before now.
"It is increasingly difficult to avoid partisan politics if you want to bring about significant changes in public policy," McConnell said in an e-mail. "From my view, the world around us has changed more than we have."
McConnell’s group is unusual in the world of big-money politics, which, across the ideological spectrum, is dominated by the whims of individual wealthy donors. Its roots are more in the philanthropic world, where institutions tend to avoid politics because of tax laws and an aversion to controversy.
The fund owes its existence to the improbable career of a man named Chuck Feeney. Now 85, he grew up poor in New Jersey, made a fortune with a global chain of duty-free shops, and then set up Atlantic to give his wealth away quietly. His generosity was a closely guarded secret until 1997.
"The Billionaire Who Wasn’t," a biography of Feeney by Conor O’Clery, is a portrait of a man who shuns the spotlight, lives modestly and travels constantly, usually in coach class. He’s as ambitious in philanthropy as he was as an entrepreneur. He founded General Atlantic, a pioneering private-equity firm, to help manage his charitable funds. During the early 1990s, O’Clery writes, Feeney played a behind-the scenes role in the Northern Ireland peace process, bankrolling a Sinn Fein office in Washington.
Most of Atlantic’s money has always gone to apolitical projects, such as university buildings and medical research around the world. One current high-profile endeavor is a $350 million commitment to help Cornell University build a new high-tech campus in New York City.
But under Gara LaMarche, who became Atlantic’s president in 2006, the group expanded its efforts to influence public policy, putting more than $200 million into a dedicated advocacy fund. Such "social welfare" funds don’t offer donors a tax deduction the way a charitable foundation, hospital or university does. But compared with charities, they are freer to lobby the government or support political candidates.
"One of the things that made Atlantic most distinctive was its capacity to do the kind of grants" that charities can’t, LaMarche said in an interview. Before he joined Atlantic, LaMarche worked for the Open Society Institute, controlled by George Soros, the billionaire investor who is among the left’s top donors.