Rosenberg Fund for Children

Pass It On: Guest Blog by Jenn Meeropol

My name is Jennifer Ethel Meeropol; I am Robert’s older daughter and the Grantmaking Coordinator at the Rosenberg Fund for Children. I’m filling in for my dad’s blog this week and next week while he’s on an anti-death penalty trip to the Far East.

I spent most of last week in New York with my father at a series of events to celebrate the RFC’s 20th anniversary and commemorate June 19th, the 57th anniversary of my grandparents’ execution. I never knew my grandparents, but I’ve felt their impact on my life as deeply as I’ve known their absence. In the midst of my sadness and anger about what was done to my grandparents, I feel a fierce pride in who they were and what they stood for. And I’m incredibly proud of the organization my dad has created from the pain of his childhood.

Others who have grown up with political targeting in the family, including many of the RFC’s beneficiaries, probably feel a similar stew of emotions – sorrow and anger, pride and obligation. That’s why I joined the staff of the Rosenberg Fund for Children in July 2007. And it’s why I plan to become the next director of the Fund when my dad retires.

Although I am the newest RFC employee, I’m not new to this community. My sister and I both served on the Advisory Board from the start and I spent many school vacations during the early days of the RFC hand-addressing envelopes for fund raising mailings, attending house parties, and listening to my dad’s talks. I’ve attended or participated in every performance of Celebrate the Children of Resistance and all but the first Gathering.

While I believe I would have supported any organization my father started in his parents’ memory, my involvement in Celebrate performances and Gatherings has strengthened my connection and commitment to the RFC and our beneficiaries. Listening to courageous young people tell their stories; seeing our beneficiaries come together and create community, and in some cases second families, despite the different ways they experienced and responded to their parents’ targeting; and enjoying the peace and just plain fun at Gatherings held at the summer camp I attended as a child, have all been powerful examples of the “constructive revenge” my dad advocates.

I’m proud of the incredible organization my father has created from the pain he experienced as a small child. And I’m grateful to be a part of a community of people committed to supporting today’s progressive activists and their children in the same way previous generations supported my father and uncle.

The activists’ particulars might have shifted over the years: more Green Scare cases as prosecutors use the Patriot Act to treat non-violent environmental activists as “terrorists” and sentence them to lengthy prison terms; an increase in surveillance and targeting of Muslims as they replace communists as the feared “other” attacked by those in power; and a growing number of soldiers jailed for refusing to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan. And our supporters have also changed as we lose the stalwarts who fought to save my grandparents and reach out to a new generation of activists who connect via Twitter, Facebook, texting and email around a mix of local and global concerns. But the RFC’s basic commitment to the children we serve has not changed: to be a reliable source of support through their youth and transition to adulthood and to ensure they will not face oppression alone.

As a former beneficiary said at the last Celebrate performance in Boston, “I hope that someday, the RFC won’t be needed…But in the meantime, the RFC community welcomes us, and helps us understand that even though our families are targeted and our situations may be difficult, we are not alone [click here to see video of her full statement].”

I’m thrilled to join “the family business,” grateful to be a part of this amazing legacy, and look forward to continuing to “pass it on” to a new generation of RFC supporters, targeted activists, and their children.

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My Plan

Three weeks from today will mark 20 years since I opened the RFC’s office in a spare room of a friend’s law firm (thank you Katz, Sasson & Hoose!).

As the exact day of the RFC’s 20th anniversary approaches I’ve been thinking a lot about my original plan and the 32 individuals and couples who enabled me to transform my dream of helping the children of targeted activists into reality. I wish I could list all their names to give them the public thanks they so richly deserve, but I promised them anonymity, and they know who they are.

I got the idea of starting a foundation in my parents’ name to provide for the educational and emotional needs of the children of targeted activists in the middle of the night in April 1989. I loved the idea, but I hadn’t a clue about how to bring it to fruition. The following month a friend with business acumen provided me with the outline of a plan.

He noted that I was in a good position to embark upon a new project because I was “between” jobs, and had a one-year position starting in September 1989. Thus I had almost 16 months to figure out how to obtain the financing so I could work full-time as the head of what was to become the RFC starting in September 1990.

First I established a set of goals. I planned to gather 10,000 supporters to help me raise $1,000,000 that would enable the RFC to award $100,000/year in grants by the year 2000. Notice how round the numbers were, so you could see that I was painting with very broad strokes.

Next, I determined how much money I’d need to pay myself, run an office and produce the materials necessary to promote the project to potential supporters. I figured it would take at least three years of full-time work to determine whether the RFC was a viable project. My friend had suggested wisely that I add an extra year on because my time-frame probably contained an element of wishful thinking. I calculated that I needed $50,000/year ($24,000 to pay my salary and $26,000 for the office). That meant I needed $200,000 over four years for operations.

I wrote a proposal outlining the project and my goals and circulated it to people from whom I’d raised funds in previous political efforts. I told people I was attempting to find twenty individuals or couples who would pledge $2,500/year for four years. This was to become the RFC’s original Operating Fund Campaign.

I told people that if I could reach at least 50% of my goal before the summer of 1990, that I’d go ahead with the project and collect on their pledges. I topped the 55% mark that May, and the rest is history. It took 32 individuals and couples rather than 20 because a number of people couldn’t afford $2,500, but offered $500, $1000 or $1500 instead. One extremely generous couple provided $5,000/year!

I just reviewed my original list. I’m amazed that 14 of the original 32 not only honored their initial pledge but also have continued to support the RFC with annual donations every year since! I’m saddened that another dozen have died since 1990. Only a relative few have dropped out.

Today the RFC’s Operating Fund Campaign has over 80 members. It provides more than half our annual Operating Budget. This guaranteed income enables us to pledge that 90% of the money we raise from the rest of our community will be used for our grants. It is the core that provides the essential assistance around which the project is built.

I’m convinced that a great of deal of the RFC’s success springs from starting with a viable plan. There have been a number of necessary ingredients that have kept us moving forward during our first 20 years, but it all started with the 32 individuals and couples who joined my original Operating Fund Campaign plan.

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2012

I wish to thank the people who have commented on my last blog about the current administration’s policies and the looming environmental catastrophe. I received many thoughtful observations from a variety of sources including the RFC’s website, Facebook and the online site OpEdNews. I am encouraged that so many people wish to discuss this crucial question. I’m sorry that I have only been able to answer a few of them. I’ve been consumed with work related to our year-end fundraising and budgeting for the next 12 months.

At the RFC, we enter 2012 facing the same financial reality we’ve confronted since 2008. Four years ago I described the growing recession as “a perfect storm of negative circumstances.” I continued: “When people are facing foreclosure, worrying about health insurance, and paying gargantuan heating bills, they are less able to contribute.” At the same time the recession left many RFC beneficiary families even more financially vulnerable. As the economy tanked, their need for our services grew.

The RFC was fortunate. We knew in advance that 2008 was going to be a bad year for us because it was a presidential election year. It may surprise some in our community to learn that we are hurt in this manner every four years. It is hard to imagine that many of our supporters would take funds they’d normally donate to the RFC and give them instead to a presidential candidate. Once you realize, however, that we award between $350,000 and $400,000 annually, even if just 5% of our supporters focus on electoral funding instead, it could cost our beneficiaries $20,000.

With this potential loss in mind AND noting the mounting signs of financial disaster, we worked extra hard in 2006 and 2007 to stockpile funds and to make our operation even leaner rather than expand during the last years of relative good times. Thus, even though hard times hit, we were able to match the record $400,000 we awarded in 2007 with another $400,000 year in 2008. We also held our 2008 Family Gathering as planned.

But the recession went on and on, and the resources we’d worked to harbor dwindled. We had to cancel our 2009 Carry it Forward Gathering and reduce our granting in 2009 to $350,000. The recession persisted, but so did we. We vowed to return to the $400,000 mark as soon as possible. We started our 20/20/20 program in September, 2009 to mark our 20th anniversary with 20 events over 20 months to raise additional funds. The success of that program enabled us to increase our granting to $360,000 in 2010 and $370,000 in 2011. We were also able to hold the Carry it Forward Gathering we had to cancel in 2009.

The “we” I’ve referred to in the preceding paragraphs includes a huge number of people. Our staff and Board had the vision and effectiveness to bring about these successes, but the entire RFC community contributed mightily as well. Otherwise we never could have gotten through four very difficult years relatively unscathed.

Now year five of the endless recession is upon us, complete with another (groan) presidential election year. We have neither the rainy-day hoard we had at the beginning of 2008, nor the special anniversary program that gave us an extra lift from late 2009 through mid-2011. But we’ve still got the most committed and generous community of support imaginable. Together we will strive even harder in the coming year to fulfill our mission of providing for the children of targeted activists.

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