December 16, 2015
Dear Friend,
As we do every December, we are once again asking you, our friends and supporters, to make an end-of-year donation to Center for Economic and Policy Research. Over the past few years we’ve tried several clever (at least to us) ways to convince you to send us some of your hard-earned cash.
We’ve enlisted some unlikely famous figures to help out:
We’ve even recruited Dean’s dogs (Noodle and Biscuit) to help the CEPR cause:
(Note: No dogs were harmed in the making of this email.) Alas, this year we’re fresh out of clever gimmicks (and dogs).
We’ve used up our creative bandwidth producing the reports, issue briefs, op-eds, articles and other publications you have come to expect from CEPR. We’ve just been too busy being out in front of other groups on a whole range of issues, including promoting financial transactions taxes, protecting Social Security against cuts (as opposed to limiting the size of cuts), pointing out that the Trans-Pacific Partnership and other pending trade deals are more about protecting patents than promoting trade, looking at how private equity is often a tax avoidance scheme that hammers workers, revealing how a lack of accountability has hampered reconstruction efforts in Haiti, holding the Federal Reserve accountable, showing that paid leave programs don’t hurt business, and how “neoliberal” economic policies led to a decades-long economic growth failure in Latin America. We accomplished all of this — and a whole lot more — on a budget that is a fraction of that of other think tanks.
But this is Washington, where being first — and being right — isn’t always rewarded. There are some institutional funders out there who see CEPR’s small size as a liability, despite the fact that we consistently rank number one in media hits per budget dollar of all the major think tanks. Moreover, our social media reach far surpasses that of much larger organizations. (Perhaps they have problems understanding the concept of “marginal,” as in how much impact you get with an additional dollar of funding.) Other funders might support our positions, but give to groups they perceive to be a “safer bet” (i.e., ones that don’t rock the boat as much as we do). And others just give to the biggest name regardless of effect or efficiency.
That is why we need you, our individual donors, now more than ever. If you’ve already given to CEPR, thank you! Your support is invaluable. If you haven’t, please consider making a gift now. We are headed into an election year, which usually results in smaller contributions for groups like CEPR. At a time when many foundations are rethinking their grant making, we simply cannot afford to lose a dime of revenue. Please, give what you can, and help us to continue to be a “thorn in the side of orthodoxy” into 2016, and beyond.
Best Wishes for a Happy and Healthy Holiday Season,
Mark, Dean, CEPR staff…and the dogs
(Okay, we couldn’t resist one more…)
