The Multinational Monitor found that 23 directors and council members from Audubon, NRDC, the Wilderness Society, the World Resources Institute, and World Wildlife Fund were associated with 19 corporations cited in a recent survey of the 500 worst industrial polluters. Inc. Furthermore, some 67 individuals associated with just 7 environmental groups served as CEOs, chairpersons, presidents, consultants or directors for 92 major corporations. In 1994, the Center for the Study of American Business at Washington University in St. Louis examined the established environmental groups' stock portfolios, ostensibly developed as a hedge against fluctuating memberships, and found that the Wilderness Society, for example, held stock in Dow Chemical, Kerr McGee, and General Motors, and the NRDC in Dow, Westinghouse, and General Electric. For organizations committed to protecting the environment and combating pollution to become financially dependent on the stock values of major polluters may represent the ultimate corruption of ecological values. Major corporate donors included Bristol Myers Squibb, Ciba-Geigy, DuPont, and Pennzoil, and an additional 161 companies participated in the Federation's matching gift program, in which individuals' gifts to the organization are matched by their employer.
Foundations often play a controversial role in movements for social change.
Organizations that wish to sustain themselves over time, initiate new projects, and offer salaries to staff members invariably need to attract large donations, and the established foundations have long been the most available source of these. Alton Jones timber investments include a subsidiary of the notorious Maxxam conglomerate, which is attempting to liquidate the largest single expanse of old growth redwood forest that remains in private hands, along with Louisiana Pacific, the largest purchaser of timber from the National Forests. St. Clair and Cockburn traced a number of instances in which environmental compromises engineered by the Clinton administration, and by groups such as the Wilderness Society, directly benefited these foundations' holdings. In our experience, these people like to congratulate themselves on their environmentalism, thoughtfulness and noble self-sacrifice while speaking in dark tones of oil company executives. At ProjectUSA, we think this is weak and silly feel-goodism.