University of Virginia Library

The United People Campaign

When the Social Action Committee of the Congregation was formally established in March of 1969, a subcommittee formed to consider the United Fund in the city. Research had already begun on the distribution of United Fund services and on the backgrounds of United Fund board members. By May of that year the subcommittee concluded that some within the local organization were committed to such goals as those cited above, and thus the possibility for change was real. In September, one of the two major local newspapers expressed interest in the study of the subcommittee and, in early December, gave the report front-page coverage. The criticisms of the United Fund, now documented, became a public issue.

The United People organization emerged the following summer. A coalition of seven groups organized earlier that year had by then dissolved because of disagreement over boycott strategies. United People actually included the Congregation and the Social Welfare Workers Movement, but press coverage identified the Congregation for Reconciliation as the prime mover and the Rev. Richard Righter as its spokesman. In formulating goals for United People, all had agreed that a shift in OF priorities in response to protest, without an accompanying shift in leadership, would be a pyrrhic victory. The 1968 UCFCA task force had called for the local United Fund organizations to increase the participation of citizens in planning and overseeing programs. The United People expanded the charge somewhat by insisting that the decision making of the United Fund be open to public surveillance, that the composition of its Board of Directors reflect the backgrounds and interests of a broader spectrum of the citizens of the community, and that member agencies (which received OF monies) not be allowed on the organization's governing board. The United People opted for the long-term strategy of pushing for the creation of countervailing power within the organization

rather than only for the alternative of short-term organizational outcomes. They assumed the latter would follow the former and agreed not to be bought off by a temporary shift in funding priorities.

Threatening its fund-raising goal by attracting attention to inconsistencies between the ideals of volunteers and community service and the fund-raising and funding practices of the organization seemed the surest way to attract the attention of the United Fund organizers. Although a direct menace to the vital fund-raising function of UP seemed to promise real leverage for bargaining, this strategy involved some serious risks. In the first place, the United Fund had over the years cultivated a large reservoir of goodwill in the community. It was seen by most people as a good organization, unselfishly tending to many human needs, providing community services through the voluntary sacrifices of many citizens. For most, to attack the United Fund would be tantamount to attacking goodness and mercy. To threaten the life of the United Fund through a boycott would likewise be an unfair and cruel act, jeopardizing community services to many persons. Who can win a war with the angels? The United Fund would be defended by some for whom it otherwise would have had a low saliency.

The risk, however, was taken. In the fall of 1970, coincident with the campaign of United Appeal, the fund-raising arm of the United Fund, United People distributed 35,000 leaflets to employees of several major corporations in the city. The leaflets called attention to the composition of United Fund leadership, to the under representation of the poor among service recipients, and to several community needs not addressed by the Fund. Arguing that pleas for change through regular channels had been fruitless, the leaflet asked that contributions be withheld from the United Appeal. The United People received immediate television and newspaper coverage. The United Fund responded by inviting their spokesperson to address its executive staff, showing a willingness to hear criticisms and react responsibly to protest. At this encounter the UP spokesman addressed the Board with praise for their dedication to community service, saying the complaint was not with the good the United Fund was doing but with the good it was not doing. The indirectness of this approach made it

difficult for the United Fund to attack credibly the motives of United People.

The counter strategy was threefold. First, while building the image of the United People as well-meaning but misguided wreckers of society, the OF organizers simultaneously presented themselves as reasonable in the face of opposition. They further took advantage of the conflict situation to motivate their volunteers to greater efforts, thus using the opposition of the United People to help achieve the Appeal's campaign goal. A letter sent on October 2, 1970, to "All Campaign Volunteers" makes this counter strategy plain:

In an attempt to counter the initial leafleting at the gates of local industrial plants, the AFL-CIO Council distributed 10,000 rebuttal flyers to the employees. By mid-October the controversy had escalated into a major social issue in the community.

Calling upon the fairness doctrine of the Federal Communications Commission, the United People pressed the local television stations to give them equal time to state their case opposite TV ads for the United Appeal. [6] Upon receipt of evidence of controversy, the FCC ruled favorably upon the request. Citing cases of alleged coercion by campaign volunteers to solicit pledges from factory workers, the United People attacked the claim of

volunteers on which the Appeal rested much of its asserted legitimation. Over fifty calls came from citizens giving examples of arm-twisting in the campaign. These examples were fed back into the media to broaden the attack.

When the United Appeal campaign ended, pledges totaled $5,601,208, more than $250,000 short of the campaign goal. This marked the first time its goal had not been achieved since the late 1950s. The final act of the 1970 drama came in the public dispute over the symbolic victory of the United People. The United Fund officials publicly denied that the United People boycott accounted in any way for their failure to achieve the predetermined goal. Rather, they pointed to higher unemployment, lower corporate profits, strikes, and inflation as explanations. However, the United People were given implicit credit in press accounts for a symbolic and psychological victory.

Privately, United Fund officials admitted having no reliable appraisal of the impact United People had had on their fund-raising drive. Some suggested that the increased sense of urgency and dedication in many campaign workers may have more than compensated for any loss of funds from those persuaded by the boycott campaign. Having won the psychological victory, however, United People could, at the last curtain call, admit in the press to also not knowing if the boycott had actually affected the United Appeal. After all, 95.6 percent of the goal had been achieved.

During the following year the United Fund made some minor shifts in priorities and installed a few new faces in the leadership circle, but when the 1971 United Appeal campaign was kicked off at a downtown rally, United People members were there leafleting the crowd. As a football was kicked down the street signifying the campaign kickoff, one conspicuous member of United People appeared wearing a sandwich-board sign reading, "The United Appeal Is Carrying the Ball the Wrong Direction."

The 1971 United People boycott campaign basically reran the strategy of the previous year. They did, however, place greater emphasis upon the inconsistency between the national statements of the United Fund organization quoted earlier and the practices of the local organization. United Appeal fell short in its campaign for a second year, despite a decrease in the goal's amount by

$163,000, itself a symbolic victory for United People. Pledges fell $119,000, or 5.1 percent, short of the lowered goal. Again, the United People tallied a victory.

Next, a new executive officer of the United Fund came aboard. Priority changes were more drastic than before. Privately, the president of the United Fund contacted United People in June 1972, after the demands of United People had been discussed in a meeting of the Board of Directors, and informed them:

1. (1) This year, the Budget Committee [has] adopted a policy that no person serving as a board member of a member agency shall participate on the Budget Committee Panel determining allocations for that agency.
2. (2) The policy of publicizing the community activities of the candidates proposed for the Board of Directors by the Nominating Committee will be continued.
3. (3) The United Fund bylaws were changed at the 1972 annual meeting to provide for election of three-fourths of the annual Board of Directors vacancies at the annual meeting. Should nominations from the floor be offered, the chairman of the meeting would decide appropriate action.
4. (4) The functional budgeting program was developed to facilitate the service funding concept from agencies to communities, to families and individuals unable to pay for the services. . . .
5. (5) The United Appeal will publicize that donations will be confidentially refunded on presented evidence that the donor had to give because of threat against promotion or threatened job loss. The appropriate 1973 campaign literature will carry this message.

The statement concluded with the hope that members of United People could now "position" themselves as members of the United Fund who could make their own pledges and encourage others to do so.

On paper, United People had achieved most of its objectives. In response to the pledge of the United Fund to meet its demands, the 1972 boycott was called off. The Appeal met its 1972 goal.

United People then tested two of the promises made by the Board of Directors of the United Fund to establish their good faith. Leaflets were distributed to employees of several industrial

Plants, repeating the United Fund's promise to make refunds upon request. The leaflet included a coupon which could be sent directly to the executive officer of the United Fund requesting the refund of a 1972 pledge. The executive was forced to admit to newsmen that it was more difficult to grant refunds than had been indicated in the United People leaflet. The request must come in the form of a letter documenting perceived threats to one's employment or other forms of coercion connected with the pledge. The United Fund publicly lost face over this issue.

In a countermove, the United Fund held open hearings as part of its annual budget meeting. This move won high praise from United Fund critics, including United People. Despite poor attendance at the six-day meetings, the executive director, in press conference, called opening the session worthwhile "because of what it represents." It was, in a sense, another pledge of good faith.

In the spring of 1973, members of United People made contributions to the United Fund and attended its annual meeting. They came with a slate of officers to nominate from the floor, including ministers, social workers, and others interested in the goals of United People. The statement received from the president of United Fund had indicated that "the chairman of the meeting would decide appropriate action" when nominations were made from the floor. The appropriate action, as it turned out, was to state that the constitution of the United Fund denied the possibility of such nominations. The United People members left before the vote and proceeded directly to the courts with a suit demanding the election be voided and that newly elected directors be prohibited from taking any action until the suit was settled. A real change in the locus of power within the organization had been narrowly averted by the United Fund administrators, but in so doing they had opened the possibility of being paralyzed by court order. A hearing was held in June of 1973 but the judge's decision was postponed; he preferred informally to seek a mutually acceptable solution. The United Fund board wasted no time in establishing a committee to study their election procedures. In July it recommended and the board accepted a procedure whereby nominations would be allowed from the community by petitions of 100 names each, to be presented not

less than twenty-one days prior to the 1974 annual meeting. The United People, feeling that their faith in the promises of United Fund leaders had once been misplaced, agreed to the new election procedures but planned a boycott of the 1973 United Appeal campaign to keep the pressure on. If the new election procedures result in a redistribution of power on the governing board of the United Fund in the summer of 1974, United People will have achieved its long-term objectives. At that point it is likely that United People will become a low-profile watchdog organization and will fade from the front pages of the local newspapers.