This article illustrates a point from chapter 10 of Cigler: influence campaigns do not aim just at public officials. This one goes after charitable foundations that police officers have set up.
Zachary Warmbrodt at Politico:
Wall Street banks and other big corporations are under pressure to cut ties with nonprofit police foundations, which racial justice activists say are increasingly funding law enforcement practices that fuel violence against Black people.
Bank of America, Wells Fargo and Chevron are among the businesses that watchdogs are targeting for making donations to the privately run foundations associated with local police departments. Banks such as JPMorgan Chase have touted multimillion-dollar gifts to the police groups. One foundation last year honored Morgan Stanley’s CEO at its annual gala.
Color of Change, an online racial justice group with 7 million members, is calling on the companies to sever their relationships with the foundations, which for some police departments have become a resource for surveillance technology, SWAT team guns, armor, drones and K-9 dogs. Critics say the gifts by the nonprofits to police departments escape public accountability.
"Our end goal is to have an intervention on the funneling of private money into police forces and into policing," said Scott Roberts, senior director of criminal justice campaigns at Color of Change. "If the police foundations existed to raise money for the families of fallen police officers, we wouldn't say we need to abolish police foundations. It's the specific type of work that they're doing that we object to."
Some corporations are beginning to reconsider the support. Wells Fargo says it has paused donations, while other companies including Goldman Sachs have agreed to hold discussions with activists.
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