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Sam Adams Alliance
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| Sam Adams Alliance | |
 | |
| Basic facts | |
| Location: | Chicago, Ill. |
| Type: | 501(c)(3) |
| Top official: | Eric O'Keefe |
| Founder(s): | Eric O'Keefe |
| Year founded: | 2006 |
| Website: | Official website |
The Sam Adams Alliance was a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization based in Chicago, Illinois, founded in 2006 and disbanded in 2012. According to its website, the organization was primarily concerned with encouraging citizen activism and government transparency.[1] The organization sponsored Ballotpedia through June 2009.
Mission
According to its 2010 tax filing, the organization's mission statement was:[2]
| “ | The Sam Adams Alliance strives to educate and inform citizens about the important political issues necessary to maintaining a free society, including government accountability.[3] | ” |
Work
The initial work of the Sam Adams Alliance was to focus on training for conservative and free-market activists. In 2010, PR Newswire noted that the group had primarily "focused on new media training while serving as an incubator for other free-market organizations."[4] According to the Huffington Post, the Sam Adams Alliance's early digital efforts were run by online activist Eric Odom, who was in charge of "setting up websites, coordinating Facebook groups, managing Twitter accounts and other social networking tasks."[5]
Name
The organization takes its name after the historical figure of the American Revolution, Sam Adams. The group's website described the qualities of Adams that they said "inspires our efforts":
| “ | He was a radical and a revolutionary in a limited sense, however. He was, in fact, a pious churchgoer who fashioned his arguments with a scrupulous devotion to legal precedent, who urged his fellow citizens to refrain from violence except in self-defense and whose aims, while ambitious, were finite. ... Comfortable in the world of his workaday Boston, at peace with his neighbors, he sought no overthrow of established values. He was, in that sense, the most conservative of radicals but also the most radical of conservatives. He would probably find no home in today’s armed camps of Republicans vs. Democrats, right vs. left, red vs. blue.[3] | ” |
Samspheres
According to a 2008 report in The New York Times, one of the earliest projects of the Sam Adams Alliance was to create what it called "Samspheres," locations where conservative bloggers and activists could gather and exchange ideas locally. The paper reported that these gatherings included training sessions from Sam Adams Alliance staff and volunteers: "The alliance’s teaching sessions have a decidedly libertarian, taxpayer mission for conservative watchdogs of state and local governments. And the Samsphere model borrows heavily from activist groups on the left like MoveOn.org and blogging sites like DailyKos.com because of the networks they have built to mobilize voters online."[6]
Programs
One of its main website initiatives was profiling "Modern-Day Sam Adamses," people it found who demonstrated citizen leadership in accordance with its mission. The group described those honored with the title as those who "saw government abuse of the people's rights and stood up to take action."[7] The organization also produced a radio show hosted by Paul Jacob, called Common Sense. The show aimed to provide "daily commentary about the issues impacting Americans today – and the citizen leaders who are doing something about it in their communities."[8]
The Sam Adams Alliance also launched Sunshine Review and provided organizational assistance and start-up funds to other groups such as American Majority and Texas Watchdog.
Leadership
According to the organization's website in 2012, the following individuals were members of the board of directors for the Sam Adams Alliance:[1]
- Eric O'Keefe, Founder, chairman, and CEO
- Leo Linbeck III
- Joe Lehman
- Eric Tubbs
Tax status
The Sam Adams Alliance was a 501(c)(3) tax exempt nonprofit organization. Its 501(c) designation refers to a section of the U.S. federal income tax code concerning charitable, religious, and educational organizations.[9] Section 501(c) of the U.S. tax code has 29 sections that list specific conditions particular organizations must meet in order to be considered tax exempt under the section. Organizations that have been granted 501(c)(3) status by the Internal Revenue Service are exempt from federal income tax.[10] This exemption requires that any political activity by the charitable organization be nonpartisan in nature.[11]
Sponsorship of Ballotpedia
The Sam Adams Alliance sponsored Ballotpedia from March 2008 to June 2009, paying the website's host and server fees and sponsoring a small staff of writers. On July 1, 2009, the Lucy Burns Institute (LBI) took over the sponsorship. On its website, LBI announced its sponsorship, saying:[12]
| “ | The Sam Adams Alliance has organized, nurtured and spun-off several important projects, including Common Sense with Paul Jacob, American Majority and Texas Watchdog. As Ballotpedia and Judgepedia join the list of projects nurtured and given wings by the Sam Adams Alliance, the Lucy Burns Institute pledges to do its best to steward these public information projects consistent with the traditions and quality they have developed under the leadership of the Sam Adams Alliance.[3] | ” |
In the 2010 tax documents for the Sam Adams Alliance, the group included the following details on the transfer:[13]
| “ | On July 1, 2009, the Sam Adams Alliance (SAM) entered into a contract with Lucy Burns Institute (LBI) which provided LBI with sponsorship of Ballotpedia and Judgepedia. These wikis evolved into rich platforms which no longer fit with SAM's core areas of expertise and allowed LBI to expand its specialist interest in organizing and presenting information about state government policies and laws using a wiki format. Eric O'Keefe is the president of SAM and is married to Leslie Graves, the president of LBI. Eric O'Keefe receives no financial benefits or salary from his association with SAM other than expense reimbursements and he did not receive any financial benefits or salary related to the transfer of sponsorship. Leslie Graves received no financial benefits or salary from LBI in 2010 and received no financial benefits of any kind from the transfer of sponsorship of Ballotpedia and Judgepedia to LBI.[3] | ” |
Recent news
The link below is to the most recent stories in a Google news search for the terms 'Sam Adams Alliance'. These results are automatically generated from Google. Ballotpedia does not curate or endorse these articles.
See also
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Sam Adams Alliance, "About," archived May 5, 2012
- ↑ GuideStar, "Sam Adams Alliance IRS Form 990 (2010)," accessed June 1, 2016
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.
- ↑ PR Newswire, "Sam Adams Alliance Launches New Website," February 25, 2010
- ↑ Huffington Post, "Anatomy of the Tea Party Movement: Sam Adams Alliance," March 18, 2010
- ↑ The New York Times, "The Sam Adams Project," July 19, 2008
- ↑ Sam Adams Alliance, "Modern-Day Sam Adamses," archived April 16, 2008
- ↑ Sam Adams Alliance, "About Common Sense," archived April 23, 2008
- ↑ Internal Revenue Service, "Exempt Purposes - Internal Revenue Code Section 501(c)(3)," accessed January 13, 2014
- ↑ Internal Revenue Service, "Life Cycle of a Public Charity/Private Foundation," accessed July 10, 2015
- ↑ Internal Revenue Service, "Exemption Requirements - 501(c)(3) Organizations," accessed January 13, 2014
- ↑ Lucy Burns Institute, "Lucy Burns Institute is the new sponsor of Ballotpedia and Judgepedia," July 1, 2009
- ↑ Cite error: Invalid
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