Dark money leaders gathered last week to discuss infrastructure enabling left-wing victory and “transformation.”
The Funders’ Committee for Civic Participation (FCCP) held its annual convening in Phoenix from April 15 to 18, with speakers from groups including George Soros’ Open Society Foundations, the Voting Rights Lab, and the Youth Engagement Fund.
Speakers with these groups discussed building an infrastructure to help progressives reach victory and maintain power, even in conservative states.
The elite left-wing influence network Democracy Alliance, an FCCP member, created one of the groups in attendance. It used similar strategies to give Democrats control of Colorado back in 2008, outsmarting Colorado Republicans at the time.
According to supplemental materials from the conference, Democrat groups are still using these tactics to subvert Republican control. Liberal groups spent more than $1.5 billion in 2020, while conservative groups spent $900 million, according to an analysis of the 15 most politically active Democrat-leaning and Republican-leaning nonprofits as reported by The New York Times.
The conference’s webpage features a disclaimer that “as with all FCCP events, the subject matter is strictly limited to non-partisan discussion as outlined in the agenda.” The agenda itself, however, calls this into question.
Building Infrastructure for the Left
Speakers held a session on shaping “state-based infrastructure” to enable “bold power-building work.”
One speaker during this session was Jamila Martin, Michigan state adviser for the Movement Voter Project — a “clearinghouse for Democratic donors” run by “veteran Democratic operatives.”
MVP is aiming to win Michigan for Democrats in 2024 and is partnering with the Back Office for Organizing in Michigan to help organize its victory. This group says it aims to help “social justice and community-based organizations” focused on “multiracial working class power building.”
“BOOM is a movement-owned back-office for-profit that provides accounting and operations services to MI’s multi-entity organizing groups — a significant innovation,” the agenda reads.
The session came with supplemental materials discussing how to advance progressive infrastructure in Florida and Ohio.
The packet on Florida said while a “Rising American Electorate” is flipping southern states blue, Florida is the exception — but lefty groups have a plan to change that. According to the packet, groups in the state have launched a “movement-owned field vendor,” developed media infrastructure, and helped felons vote by passing Amendment 4.
“A set of multi-entity progressive organizations has been developing a deeper power analysis of the state, building a long-term strategy to win elections and policy fights,” the packet reads.
The packet on Ohio said the state “recently shifted red with an increasingly reactionary electorate,” but discussed ways self-styled progressive groups are taking advantage of the situation. The state’s left-wing groups have been working on producing “unrestricted income” for the movement, creating “back-office” support for “power building” groups, and establishing a “home for progressive staff and activists to help them contest for power across more arenas.”
But such initiatives go beyond these states.
“The fight for a progressive Ohio led to innovations in state infrastructure that has been, and will continue to be, modeled in other states,” the Ohio packet reads.
Fortifying Democrat Victory
Another session was called, “We plan, we win, what’s next? Seizing power starts in the transition after election day.” It aimed at bringing “true transformation” after placing Democrats in office.
“If we want to win power, we have to demonstrate that we can govern, and that means supporting people to plan their transitions and execute,” the agenda reads.
Elizabeth Guernsey, chief of staff for Soros’ Open Society Foundations in the United States, was scheduled to speak during the session, although illness prevented her from attending. According to her bio, she has recently been focusing on “women’s power building investments and pro-democracy strategy.”
According to the agenda, her session was set to “explore the concept of transition planning, its challenges, gaps, and opportunities to advance a more progressive political agenda.”
Open Society Foundations is an FCCP member that doles out hundreds of millions of dollars to left-wing causes to help advance Soros’ “anti-capitalist, redistributionist” ideology. For years, it has been funding get-out-the-vote efforts for likely Democrat voters.
After self-described progressive leaders win, they should focus on “stabilizing the post-election environment” against threats to election outcomes and “faith in our democracy,” speakers addressed in another session. These supposed threats included challenges to election results, “disinformation,” and “conspiracies.” The FCCP said it helped “stabilize” the environment after the 2020 and 2022 elections, and it plans to do this in 2024.
Voting Rights Lab officials Randy Perez and Becca Israel were listed as speakers for this session. The group is a former project of the New Venture Fund — a branch of the left-wing powerhouse Arabella Advisors — and pushes leftist policies to promote mail-in and felon voting and “transform our voting systems.”
This session also featured clearly ideologically motivated officials like Pima County Recorder Gabriella Cázares-Kelly, who is in charge of voter registration for the Arizona county that includes Tuscon, the second largest city in the state. In her bio and activity on X, she boasts about her efforts in “dismantling white supremacy” and features her preferred “she/her” pronouns.
‘The Left Just Bought the Racetrack‘
Another session covered “Charting new paths: resilience, collaboration, and transformation in Arizona.” While the agenda does not offer a description, speakers included Youth Engagement Fund officials Alejandra Ruiz and Catherine Jung.
YEF is another project of Arabella’s New Venture Fund. Democracy Alliance, which created YEF, committed $146 million to “progressive infrastructure map” groups ahead of the 2020 election. It works with groups like America Votes and Arabella to build a left-wing power infrastructure.
When Republicans still held power in Colorado, Democracy Alliance’s state affiliate began “pop-up” dark money groups to gather funding and built infrastructure to target Republican incumbents. The approach worked in the 2008 elections, leading Democrats to eventual dominance in the state.
The Democracy Alliance quickly dubbed this approach the “Colorado Model” and planned to expand it nationwide. Rob Stein, Democracy Alliance founder, predicted that the left would find success.
“It is a warning shot to conservatives in America that if the Colorado Model is replicated elsewhere, conservatives have nothing comparable to possibly compete with it, and they had better watch out,” he said, as quoted in The Blueprint: How the Democrats Won Colorado.
Stein may have a point. If left-wing groups like those in FCCP successfully reshape the elections environment, the right will not reach any substantial victory. Conservatives should push for policies holding public officials accountable to the people, keeping left-wing influence groups far from the levers of power. But these dark money networks are not going away, so if the right hopes to compete, it must create an infrastructure to rival that of the left.
“They invested more money, but they invested it much more wisely. Instead of just chasing candidates, they built infrastructure,” said Jon Caldara, president of the libertarian Denver-based think tank Independence Institute, to The Washington Examiner. “Republicans in Colorado continued to put their money on racehorses, while the left just bought the racetrack.”
This article has been updated since publication.
