When governments want to encourage some sort of action, it’s often done via grantmaking. They issue requests for proposals (RFPs) which nonprofits, local governments, and others can answer in the hopes of getting funded.
Nonprofits and foundations often do this too, offering grant money for the things they see as important. In Colorado, this model is sometimes used to influence the news you consume. One of Colorado’s bigger foundations is involved in a series of cozy relationships with a nonprofit media organization and a nonprofit news outlet (among others) for something akin to a pay for play deal, a grant which drives coverage that might otherwise not have happened.
Colorado’s tightly bound nonprofits
Gary Community Ventures (GCV) recently put out an offer of grant money for a project aimed at pointing the public’s attention to child care issues in Colorado. Quoting their spokesman, Will Holden, the grants were to “…support content creators and journalists in helping more Coloradans understand the scope and impact of the problem and engage in informed conversations about potential solutions.” There are other groups GCV would give grants to, but when I looked at this, I focused mainly on paying media to cover child care.
Besides involving early childhood education and childcare –an interest of mine–what really caught my attention about this project was the broader context around which it’s popping up. While GCV is busy wanting to start a “conversation,” another group of progressive nonprofits is pushing to rewrite our state’s income tax system, taking it from flat tax to a progressive tax. A look at the roster pushing the tax scheme shows that many also happen to be involved in, among other things, child care and early childhood education.
Given that any attempt to involve the state in child care (more than it already is anyway) would necessarily involve raising more revenue, the questions suggest themselves. Are these efforts connected? Is child care going to be one of the levers used to help move people in that direction? Is GCV doing pay for play media coverage to help this effort (or advocating in some other way by driving a particular ideology in media coverage)?
These questions are informed by Colorado’s tightly bound nonprofit ecosystem. The policy advocacy arm of GCV has long advocated for (using their words) “unlocking public dollars.” They’ve pushed for using more taxpayer money for a host of social measures, including affordable housing and childcare. In that work, they’ve teamed up with and/or given money to almost all of the groups actively supporting a progressive income tax.
With regard to grants to purchase coverage on childcare, GCV hired (among others) the Colorado Media Project (CMP) to consult, helping craft and disseminate a request for proposals to Colorado news outlets, as well guiding who got the grants. This makes good sense–if I needed to do something I wasn’t familiar with, I’d hire an expert too–but CMP also happens to be one of the “major supporters” of a grantee, the Colorado Sun. The same Colorado Sun which turned around and will now write a whole series on child care.
What is GVC money buying?
As Colorado College journalism professor Corey Hutchins (also a consultant hired by GCV for this project) says, relationships matter. That said, relationships alone do not necessarily add up to a conspiracy, and there are some important things to note in this case. Will Holden from GCV told me that their policy advocacy arm (the one looking to “unlock” your tax dollars) is separate from their philanthropic arm (the arm pushing the media coverage), and that all they’re after with this coverage is to start a conversation in Colorado about child care. They’re not pushing an agenda on any media outlet.
The Sun, for its part, echoes what Holden told me, which is in broad strokes exactly what GCV’s request for proposals states explicitly: any media outlet accepting this grant has complete editorial autonomy. No one from GCV tells them what to write.
This doesn’t mean GCV doesn’t have thoughts on the matter, of course. From both mention in an article, and emails to both Holden and the Sun, I gather that GCV certainly at least suggested sources and studies to them. Outside of the ones I know for sure that GCV suggested, a little bit of quick digging shows more connections: one of the Sun articles has copious quotes from Colorado Children’s Campaign, a group both funded by GCV and pushing the progressive income tax.
After all this, we are about in the same spot we started at. Whether or not GCV has an ulterior motive or is giving out money with strings attached is an open question. There is enough to raise legitimate concerns, but there’s also enough to leave room for doubt. This is a question of whether you choose to take everyone involved at their word or not. You will have to come to your own conclusion on that.
Pushing an agenda
To my mind, the motives are almost secondary. Let’s take them all at their word. Let’s say that GCV’s media effort is about starting a conversation and only that, with no designs on propagandizing.
The intent doesn’t change the reality of what GCV is doing, and I struggle to see how they could be blind to the outcome of their process. Dogs bark, birds fly, and using progressive groups as consultants to help give grants to progressive, nonprofit news organizations is going to result in progressively-oriented news coverage, the kind with a tilt toward how the state needs to be involved in paying for and fixing child care, the kind where quotes like “the market can’t fix child care” (spoken by the director of yet another nonprofit, The Clayton Early Learning center) will loom large. Perhaps GCV is deep enough in their web of nonprofits that this didn’t occur.
Whatever the reason and whether they recognize it or not, GCV’s choices are in fact pushing an agenda, and if they are sincere about “starting a conversation” with a broad range of voices involved, they should revisit their process. They should bust out of their bubble and talk to some of those who live outside of it.
Cory Gaines teaches college physics and is a regular contributor to Complete Colorado. He lives in Sterling on Colorado’s Eastern Plains. He also writes at the Colorado Accountability Project substack.
