Douglas H. Phelps Foundation

Background

The Douglas H. Phelps Foundation is the personal funding vehicle for Doug Phelps, who is the president and executive director of the controversial left-wing organizing entity known as the Public Interest Network. Phelps holds many additional roles, and dozens of titles inside the left-progressive movement in addition to his position with Public Interest Network, a collection of over 15 national and a large number of state-level groups that work in left-progressive engagement mostly through canvassing. ¹

Commentators and former employees have criticized Phelps’s organizations for fostering a “churn and burn”³ approach to hiring low level canvassers for his many for-profit and non-profit operations. The news outlet Daily Beast characterized Fund for the Public Interest as “the liberal sweatshop.” ⁴ Phelps is known to be very private and has little presence in public settings and is rarely photographed. ¹

Phelps is also a founding member of the Colorado Democracy Alliance, the Colorado prototype of the Democracy Alliance, a strategizing group that convenes top-level donors and influencers on the political left. ⁵

Phelps has amassed a fortune through a complex political operation that incorporates his nonprofits under Fund for the Public Interest and the Public Interest Network and the for-profit companies Telefund and Grassroots Campaigns. All the entities incorporate canvassing and grassroots campaigning while employing entry-level and low-paid staffers. ⁶

Activity

The Douglass H. Phelps Foundation is managed by a management company called Foundation Source, giving it a Delaware address. The organization has slightly over $1 million in total assets and has made annual contributions ranging from a total of $60,000 to $114,000 in annual grants. In 2018, the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence and the Aspen Institute were among 5 organizations receiving just over $50,000 total. ²