Funding the conservative movement

I haven't read Funding Fathers: The Heroes Behind the Conservative Movement yet. I have read Dan Flynn's review of the book, which was written by two key leaders of the Young America's Foundation (YAF), founder Ron Robinson and fundraiser Nicole Hoplin. (As any campus conservative knows well, YAF is an extremely helpful organization that helps bring center-right speakers to colleges and universities.)

As a history lesson, there are few better professors than Robinson, a firsthand witness to the rise of the conservative movement, and Hoplin, one of the bright young torch-bearers at YAF. But this also underscores one of the needed shifts in the conservative movement. In the past, deep-pocketed businessmen who loved freedom could and would bankroll books, organizations, or other projects. Direct mail mavens - especially Richard Viguerie - updated that model by creating a donor base that relied on relatively low-dollar average donations from a higher number of supporters.

Now, as Viguerie himself has long predicted, the conservative movement must go even farther in optimizing the internet. Online fundraising doesn't offer the one-shot money bomb that a check from Richard Mellon Scaife may have, but it forces organizations to be more diligent and intelligent in their fundraising.

And best of all, it gets more people involved - which is what a movement should be about, anyway.