Consider the HISTORY of governance of the organizations that generate the majority of the PIRG movement's considerable income. These include the Fund For Public Interest Research (The FUND), USPIRG, MASSPIRG, CALPIRG, Green Century Funds and others. Historically, Doug Phelps has held or does hold the Chair or President's position of each of these organizations.
At the same time, look at ownership of Telefund and GCI -- two privately held businesses that represent the largest canvass and phone operation in the country. Phelps owns both.
While this may all be legal, the question of whether it is appropriate is of major concern to more than just a few. No one could disagree that on the face of it, this kind of set up is at least ripe for abuse by anyone in Phelps'position.
For some history -- In 1993, MASSPIRG, building on the success of its new kind of door to door canvass and a new PIRG campus organizing model,launched the Fund For Public Interest Research (the FUND). Built with the resources MASSPIRG harnessed from its canvasses and campus organizing, The FUND was set up to provide the PIRG movement with technical assistance to build up the infrastructure and resources of the movement in states and nationwide.
Phelps came to MASSPIRG in 1979. He had attended HLS, done some student organizing at UMASS Amherst, and set up a public interest law program. He, along with a team including Mindy Lubber, Ken Ward, Elise Jacques, and Susan Birmingham, built both MASSPIRG and then the FUND.
Just 11 years later Phelps started Telefund as his own private company. To start Telefund, he used technology developed during the previous 5 years by the FUND and MASSPIRG, hired away top senior PIRG and FUND staff, and shifted business from the PIRGs to Telefund. At the time, he was Executive Director of MASSPIRG. While he deliberately did not hold a formal position on the FUND at that time, there is no question, to anyone familiar with modern PIRG history 101, that he ran the show with respect to the FUND. He ran every FUND meeting, he made every decision, and most importantly, he signed the paychecks.
Telefund could not have been started without taking clients, technology, and key staff from the FUND. It is clear how Phelps benefited from this -- as sole owner of Telefund. How did the PIRG movement benefit?
In 2004, Grassroots Campaigns was launched using the same development model as Telefund: take the FUND/PIRG technology, key staff, and in this case the reputation of the PIRG/FUND and start a privately owned business to run canvasses and voter identification projects for the Democratic Party.
The GCI canvasses were started on the back of the PIRG/FUND canvasses. Not only that,the GCI canvasses could not be sustained today if not for the PIRG/FUND canvasses whereby office directors move from operation to operation depending on what works for GCI.
There are many to whom it seems quite obvious that many many key decisions made by Phelps in the interest of Telefund and GCI are DECIDEDLY NOT in the interest of the PIRG movement.
How is it in the interest of the PIRG movement to shut down and transfer its staff to do the work of the private company of Doug Phelps, GCI and GCI's various permutations?
How is the relationship between the PIRG/FUND organizations and GCI's electoral activity helpful to the PIRG? It is highly illegal for non-profits to engage in electoral activity. Secrecy and obfsucation are the tools necessary to maintaining the ability for GCI to use the PIRG to tap electoral clients.
No one begrudges PIRG directors and leadership from making top public interest salaries. However, to many it does not seem healthy for one person in the movement to be making literally millions of dollars a year off the work of the movement while the majority of the staff struggle. Many are concerned that although he most certainly will not release or make transparent his income from Telefund and GCI, Douglas Phelps, the Chair of USPIRG, the FUND, does reap millions in personal profits every year. In what way does this make sense for the progressive movement or the PIRGs?
Privately, many in the larger PIRG family think he should resign all of his positions with the PIRG movement so that there can be no appearance of conflict of interest between the interest of his business and the PIRG movement's interest.
Many think he should resign all positions within the PIRG movement in order to create the appropriate distance between the PIRG movement and GCI's increasingly visible electoral activity.
Many think he should resign because he has built something more akin to a cult rather than a healthy and dynamic organization which can tolerate dissent.
The question of how and why Phelps was able to amass such power and is able to personally profit so greatly off the PIRG is complex.
One thing for sure is that Phelps has used the movement's resources to buttress himself legally. He has had some of the best legal minds available work to cover him, although not necessarily cover the PIRG. The PIRG/Fund organizations are at risk.
Big picture, responsible scruitinty would at least raise serious questions regarding:
To the extent that professionalized door to door and street canvasses developed by the PIRG/FUND are increasingly being used to increase the small donor base of the Democratic Party, this situation should be of concern to the Party.
Will Phelps voluntarily resign even if the risks to the PIRG outweigh the benefits? Quite the opposite. With a vengence, he will go after any person or persons with the courage to raise this as a rational possibility.
