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2000 Annual Report

Download 2000 Annual Report (PDF, 1.52MB)

Education • Tools to build a fair economy

UFE education programs reach thousands of people in religious congregations, unions, neighborhood groups and business associations. Our programs pick up where think tanks leave off. We have a knack for transforming dry economic statistics into memorable learning experiences that connect to people’s lives and lead to action. To multiply our efforts, UFE trains and supports a national network of volunteer workshop leaders.

National Reach
In the first nine months of 2000, our staff and volunteers conducted 275 educational programs for over 7,000 people. We often work with community organizations on their particular focus. For example, we collaborated with Northeast Action to develop a curriculum on corporate subsidy abuse.

Trainer’s Network
Our national trainer’s network now includes 600 trainers from 38 states, Canada, and D.C. We organized three intensive training institutes, each lasting four days, in Seattle, Cape Cod and Milwaukee, and trained over 100 new trainers.

Religious Partnerships
Much of our education work takes place through partnerships with faith-based organizations. For example, we have worked with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and The Catholic Campaign for Human Development to develop curriculum on Catholic Social Teaching and the economy. We conducted workshops at the Unitarian Universalist General Assembly and at the national convention of the Episcopal Church. We modified our core workshop, the Growing Economic Divide, for Jews. “Applying Tzedek to the Economy” uses core Jewish principles of social justice to examine the economy.

Labor Partnerships
We have deepened our ties to labor by collaborating with the Education Department of the AFL-CIO on a global economics curriculum. We teamed up with AFSCME, the AFL-CIO, and several other international unions to work for passage of the minimum wage. We continue to support dozens of UFE volunteer trainers who are developing educational programs with their unions.

Action • We are making a difference

UFE links thousands of individuals and local organizations to take action to reduce inequality. Through legislative advocacy, creative street theater, corporate campaigns and direct action, UFE members are organizing to ensure the economy works for everyone.

Stopping Regressive Tax Policies
UFE was a lead organization in the national effort to protect the estate tax, our country’s most progressive tax. UFE members around the country mobilized at the end of August to switch 17 key votes and help sustain President Clinton’s veto of the estate tax repeal.

Global Action
In Seattle, Washington, D.C., and at summer political conventions, UFE ran teach-ins, co-coordinated protests and brought smiles to people’s faces with our street theater antics.

New England Global Action Networks
UFE has helped convene six local global action groups in New England. We worked to oppose Permanent Trade Relations with China and organized for fair trade policies.

Shadow Conventions
UFE was one of six national organizations to convene “shadow” conventions at both of the major political party conventions. UFE joined Call to Renewal, Common Cause, Public Campaign and the National Campaign for Jobs and Income Support to debate issues of campaign finance corruption, poverty and wealth inequality, and the failed war against drugs.

Direct Organizing
In over 20 places around the U.S., “clusters” of UFE members are meeting and taking on projects to raise the issue of growing inequality in their communities.

UFE Campus Living Wage Manual
The manual reached thousands of student activists in 2000. UFE staff distributed it at national student conferences and co-led workshops with student leaders who had experience in organizing living wage campaigns for college workers.

Responsible Wealth • Because inequality hurts everyone

Responsible Wealth (RW) continues to be an unexpected and welcome voice for economic fairness. RW now has 450 members who bring the perspective of business leaders and investors who support progressive economic policies. With its surprising voice against narrow self-interest, RW members work side-by-side with UFE members to build a fairer economy.

Protecting the Estate Tax
Responsible Wealth (RW) members led the effort to protect our nation’s estate tax from complete repeal with letters and visits to legislators, advertisements in newspapers, letters to the editor and media appearances.

RW member Martin Rothenberg, a software entreprenuer, spoke at a White House press conference as President Clinton vetoed the repeal legislation. He told the President: “My family and I and others in Responsible Wealth applaud your efforts to stand up to the special interests that want this unwarranted and dangerous tax break. We want every American to have the same opportunities that I had to build a prosperous future for their children and grandchildren.”

Shareholder Actions
Responsible Wealth filed a bevy of shareholder resolutions this year, calling on companies like Honeywell, Huffy and Raytheon to reduce grotesque inequalities of compensation. We called on American International Group to hold real board elections and asked General Electric to disclose their political spending to influence policy.

Business Leaders Speaking Out for Living Wages
Over 100 business leaders signed RW’s Living Wage Covenant, pledging to pay a living wage and to work for increases in the federal minimum wage. RW’s report, Choosing the High Road: Businesses that Pay a Living Wage and Prosper, documents the win-win arguments for increasing pay.

Annual Conference
Over 150 RW members gathered in Boston for its annual conference, which focused on mobilizing business leaders in support of living wages and broader ownership of wealth. Our speakers included former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, author Juliet Schor, natural capitalism advocates Hunter and Amory Lovins, and former Stride-Rite CEO Arnold Hiatt.

Research, Media and Publications • Exploding the myths and promoting solutions

A strong media presence and timely research is key to convincing Americans that too much inequality is bad for our society and that shared prosperity is a realistic and worthy goal. Our capacity to reach the public through talk radio, print media and television continues to grow.

Media Profile
In 1999, UFE had over 1000 documented media hits including appearances on PBS News Hour, CNN, BBC online, Bloomberg Business News Radio and over 350 talk radio shows. As of October 1, 2000, we will surpass last year’s visibility with a fall talk radio campaign and Economic Apartheid book tour. We are currently on track to get over 1,400 media hits in 2000.

Reports and Books
UFE released several reports, including Executive Excess 2000, published in conjunction with the Institute for Policy Studies. The report shows that between 1990 and 1999, total CEO pay grew by 535%. Worker pay grew just 32% during the same period — only slightly ahead of the inflation rate, which totaled 27.5% for the decade.

In the Bookstores: Economic Apartheid in America: A Primer on Economic Inequality and Insecurity, by UFE’s co-directors Chuck Collins and Felice Yeskel, was published by The New Press in September. UFE has organized a fall national tour for the authors, using book events around the country to boost local members’ organizing efforts.

Targeted Media
Because the post-Seattle surge of global trade activism has been concentrated on the East and West Coasts, UFE sought talk radio opportunities on that topic in the South and Midwest; over 55 shows reached hundreds of thousands of people.

Global Activist’s Handbook
UFE will publish a book late in 2000 or early in 2001 which offers a blueprint for building a movement against corporate globalization. It includes case studies on effective organizing and gives how-to tips and resources for new activists. Over 30 seasoned organizers have contributed.

After the book is published, we will load it onto a global, interactive website. It will be a constantly evolving, state-of-the-art electronic organizer’s manual. With this website we will launch an open database of organizations across the country, so anyone who wants to join or link to this movement can find groups to work with.

Operations and Development • Sustaining the Work

fundraising philosophy is built on the core belief that the quality of our lives is linked to the quality of people’s lives everywhere.

United for a Fair Economy has grown remarkably in its first five years, from one person to a staff of seventeen. Our commitment is to help build a diverse movement of religious organizations, labor unions, grass roots and national organizations, unaffiliated individuals and people with wealth who share our outrage at the growing economic divide. To make this kind of history, this deep and lasting social change, we need substantial resources.

Social movements are built on donations both large and small, but their financial base rests on membership. The labor movement built itself through membership dues. Cesar Chavez, founder of the United Farm Workers, collected $1 a month from farm workers who had little to spare. The contributions and sacrifices of African Americans, much of it funneled through networks of Black churches, were the backbone of support for the Civil Rights movement. For example, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), founded in the forties by Bayard Rustin, had, by the late fifties, twelve thousand donors who gave an average of $4.83 each.

FY 2000 Totals
Based on data from Jan. 1 - Sep. 30, 2000 and projections to end of year

Total Income: $1,300,000
Individuals 40%
Institutions 33%
Memberships (including Responsible Wealth) 11%
Program Fees 11%
Merchandise Sales 5%

Total Expenses: $1,230,000
Education 24%
Mobilization and Action 23%
Responsible Wealth 21%
Research and Media 13%
Arts and Theater 10%
Fundraising and Events 5%
Literature and Merchandise 4%

Special thanks to our institutional supporters in 2000:
Agape Foundation
Albert A. List Foundation
Boehm Foundation
Funding Exchange
Gaea Foundation
Haymarket People’s Fund
Nathan Cummings Foundation
Resist
Samuel Rubin Foundation
Solidago Foundation
Threshold Foundation
Tides Foundation
Unitarian Universalist Veatch Program at Shelter Rock

FY 2001 UFE Budget Projections:
Income: $1,750,000
Expenses: $1,650,000

Making contributions to United for a Fair Economy
All gifts are appreciated and all gifts help build the movement for economic fairness. Please give generously to help fund our cutting-edge work.

If you would like to make a gift of stocks or securities, please contact Linda Berkel at U.S. Trust at 617-726-7251 or 800-282-8782 ext. 7251.

United for a Fair Economy is a 501(c)3 tax-exempt organization. All contributions are tax-deductible to the extent allowable by law.

Download 2000 Annual Report (PDF, 1.52MB)

1999 Program Accomplishments