build your institute now!

...ask me how! The NYT outs the International Republican Institute as McCain’s personal influence peddling shop. See me? See my democracy guys first. So it goes. All of which is preamble to the Stiftung’s rather wonderful fireside chat on the way of that particular world. Hook a spittoon, pull up a chair and light yourself a cheap cigar.

IRI’s growth from embryo to today’s McCain platform should not be taken for granted. These organizations and their staff, if successful, have a time honored trajectory. They start modestly. The letterhead really is the organization. They list more famous people to get in a door, etc. People outside the organization rarely know that letterhead ‘grandees’ rarely if ever return a staffer’s phone call. Sometimes they forget they are even ‘involved’. The organization to survive must (a) hang on temporally ; and (b) generate publicity for its ‘advisory board’, etc. If this happens, then the next spiral happens. A slightly more prestigious persona enters, notches up the advisory board a level, and so on…

…Organizations in this upward spiral initially do not get attention from corporate lobbyists. Fortune 100 companies do not throw money around even today. Annual budgets are carefully weighed to the $1,000 in pecking order, etc. A new organization usually can expect no money. And they often don’t get much attention from their ‘boards’. A Catch 22.

Smart staff figure out a metaphysical ju-jitsu shell game. Outside funders (corporate or foundational) must be convinced to back X (dinner, conference, award, etc.) while packaging X as great for the board, etc. Even then it is hard to get the initial $5,000. That’s a big deal. $10,000 is party time. The $15,000 and $25,000 cheques? Usually only for those with demonstrated clout: putting our people in the same room with those people — or that man. There really is a sort of Build Your ‘Institute’ Now! playbook on this.