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Non-profit

Future Now Action

Website:

www.futurenow.org/
Location:

WASHINGTON, DC
Tax ID:

82-2390410
Tax-Exempt Status:

501(c)(4)

Budget (2020):

Revenue: $2,702,832
Expenses: $1,440,725
Assets: $1,840,355
Type:

Left-wing issue advocacy
Formation:

2020
Executive Director:

Daniel Squadron

Contact InfluenceWatch with suggested edits or tips for additional profiles.

Future Now Action is part of Future Now, an umbrella organization that pursues three related activities: the States Project, the Lawmaker Network, and the PAC for America’s Future (formerly the Future Now Fund PAC). 1

Future Now Action pursues three related activities: the States Project, the Lawmaker Network, and its PAC for America’s Future. The Future Now organizations focus on efforts related to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. 2

Background and Activities

Future Now Action was founded in 2017 by former New York state Senator Daniel Squadron (D-Brooklyn), Columbia University professor Jeffrey Sachs, and businessman Adam Pritzker. 3

Future Now joined numerous organizations pursuing the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, a list of 17 policy priorities that include establishing gender equality, ending world hunger, and combating climate change with substantial investments in weather-dependent wind and solar energy by 2030. 4

Future Now Action pursues three related activities: the States Project, the Lawmaker Network, and its PAC for America’s Future. The States Project combines with the PAC for America’s Future and the PAC for Minnesota’s Future to identify and promote Democratic state-level candidates that will support Future Now’s environmentalist agenda and help achieve Democratic majorities. 5 6 As of 2022, the States Project is focused on eight states: Arizona, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, Nevada, North Carolina and Pennsylvania. 7

The States Project is funded by Future Now Fund PAC, now called the PAC for America’s Future. 8 According to OpenSecrets, the PAC spent $18.7 million between 2018 and 2022. 9

The Lawmaker Network supports a variety of left-of-center policy ideas, such as the $15 minimum wage, expansion of unions, and government-run health care. 10

People

Executive Director

Executive director Daniel Squadron resigned from his New York state Senate seat in 2017 to help found Future Now. Early in his career he worked on the New York City mayoral campaign of former Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY). He was also an aide to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who endorsed Squadron’s campaign for the state Senate, as did Weiner and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. 11 As New York State senatorial candidate in 2014, Squadron utilized New York’s fusion voting scheme to run under the banners of both the Democratic Party and the left-wing Working Families Party (WFP). 12

For the fiscal year ending June 30, 2020, Squadron received direct compensation of $132,532. 13 He received an additional $142,226 from related organizations. 14 Future Now Fund PAC pays salaries of all Future Now Action employees and is reimbursed. 15

Jeffrey Sachs

Co-founder Jeffrey Sachs is director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, and former economics professor and director of Columbia’s Earth Institute. Sachs’ economic theories and projects have faced criticism. Vanity Fair reporter Nina Munk, who followed Sachs’ project for six years, wrote a book about it, The Idealist: Jeffrey Sachs and the Quest to End Poverty. She states that his projects have often left people “worse off after the fact than they were before.” 16

In one example, Sachs’ African Millennium Villages Project provided fertilizer and seed to grow a bumper crop of corn. The local people didn’t like corn, a factor Sachs hadn’t considered. Their favorite crop, meanwhile, was not grown. Flooding the market with unwanted corn collapsed prices, so farmers lost money. Most was left to rot and attracted rodents and insects. Farmers protested by smashing windows in the Millennium Project office and setting a car on fire. 17

Sachs’ work in Eastern Europe and Russia earned him criticism in 1999 from left-wing Nobel Laureate and then World Bank chief economist Joseph Stiglitz, who, without directly naming him, said Sach’s failed efforts in Russia resulted from “an excessive reliance on textbook models of economics.” 18 He mocked Sachs for blaming it on others, who “failed to follow the doctor’s orders.” 19

Adam Pritzker

Co-founder Adam Pritzker is a member of the multibillionaire Pritzker family, founders of Hyatt hotels. 20 Six members of the Pritzker family made the 2021 list of Forbes’ wealthiest 400 Americans, with a net worth of $24.5 billion between them. 21

Adam co-founded General Assembly, a company that later sold for $413 million. 22 In 2016 he was listed in Inc. magazine’s 30 under 30. 23

His cousin, Penny, served in the Obama administration as Secretary of Commerce and chaired Obama for America during Obama’s second presidential campaign in 2012. 24 Another cousin, J.B. Pritzker, is a Democratic politician who serves as governor of Illinois. 25

Pritzker studied under Jeffrey Sachs and later worked for Sachs at Columbia’s Earth Institute. 26

References

  1.  “About.” FutureNow. Accessed June 27, 2022. https://futurenow.org/.
  2. Wulfhorst, Ellen. “New group launched in US to set nation’s own long-term goals to fix ills.” Reuters. October 9, 2017. Accessed June 23, 2022. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-goals-future/new-group-launched-in-u-s-to-set-nations-own-long-term-goals-to-fix-ills-idUSKBN1CF01Q.
  3. Wulfhorst, Ellen. “New group launched in US to set nation’s own long-term goals to fix ills.” Reuters. October 9, 2017. Accessed June 23, 2022. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-goals-future/new-group-launched-in-u-s-to-set-nations-own-long-term-goals-to-fix-ills-idUSKBN1CF01Q
  4.  “Issue Brief SDG 7: Ensuring Access to Affordable, Reliable, Sustainable and Modern Energy for All.” UN Environment Program. Accessed July 7, 2022. https://wedocs.unep.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.11822/25762/SDG7_Brief.pdf.
  5. “Legal and Terms.” The States Project. Accessed June 24, 2022. https://statesproject.org/legal-terms/.
  6. “Why States Matter.” The States Project. Accessed June 24, 2022. https://statesproject.org/why-states-matter/.
  7. “Our States.” The States Project. Accessed July 11, 2022. https://statesproject.org/our-states/.
  8. “ThePACforAmericasFuture.org.” Accessed July 7, 2022. https://thepacforamericasfuture.org/.
  9. “PAC Profile: Future Now Fund PAC.” Open Secrets. April 1, 2021. Accessed June 25, 2022. https://www.opensecrets.org/political-action-committees-pacs/future-now-fund/C00654053/summary/2020.
  10.  “Policy Library.” The Lawyer Network. Accessed June 24, 2022. https://thelawmakernetwork.org/policy library/all/.
  11. “Squadron, Daniel.” People Pill. Accessed June 23, 2022. https://peoplepill.com/people/daniel-squadron.
  12. “Squadron, Daniel.” Ballotpedia. Accessed June 23, 2022. https://ballotpedia.org/Daniel_Squadron.
  13. Future Now Action. Return of Organization Exempt from Income Tax (Form 990), 2020, Part VII, line 1a, Column D. https://pdf.guidestar.org/PDF_Images/2020/822/390/2020-822390410-202101379349306345-9O.pdf.
  14. Future Now Action. Return of Organization Exempt from Income Tax (Form 990), 2020, Part VII, line 1a, Column E. https://pdf.guidestar.org/PDF_Images/2020/822/390/2020-822390410-202101379349306345-9O.pdf.
  15. Future Now Action. Return of Organization Exempt from Income Tax (Form 990), 2020, Schedule 3, Part III. https://pdf.guidestar.org/PDF_Images/2020/822/390/2020-822390410-202101379349306345-9O.pdf
  16. O’Donnell, Brian. “Special Interview: Nina Munk on Jeffrey Sachs and the Millennium Villages Project.” The Baines Report. February 17, 2014. Accessed July 6, 2022. https://sites.utexas.edu/bainesreport/2014/02/17/special-interview-nina-munk-on-jeffrey-sachs-and-the-millennium-villages-project/.
  17. Nina Munk on Poverty, Development, and the Idealist.” EconTalk. Jan 27 2014. Accessed July 11, 2022. https://www.econtalk.org/nina-munk-on-poverty-development-and-the-idealist/.
  18. French. “The Not-So-Great Professor.”
  19. French. “The Not-So-Great Professor.”
  20. Gelles, David. “A Pritzker Sets Out With Ideas of Empire.” New York Times. November 5, 2014. Accessed July 6, 2022. https://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/11/05/a-pritzker-sets-out-with-ideas-of-empire/.
  21. Dolan, Kerry A., Editor. Peterson-Withorn, Chase and Wang, Jennifer, Deputy Editors. “The Forbes 400: The Definitive Ranking of the Wealthiest Americans in 2021.” Forbes. Accessed June 23,2022. https://www.forbes.com/forbes-400/.
  22. Primack, Dan. “Adecco buys General Assembly for $413 million.” Axios. April 16, 2018. Accessed June 23, 2022. https://www.axios.com/2018/04/16/general-assembly-1523667905.
  23.  Fenn, Donna. “Thirty Under 30 2016.” Inc. 2016. Accessed June 23, 2022. https://www.inc.com/30under30/donna-fenn/adam-pritzker-matthew-brimer-brad-hargreaves-founders-general-assembly.html.
  24. Easton, Nina. “The fascinating life of Penny Pritzker (so far).” Fortune. June 2, 2014. Accessed July10, 2022. https://fortune.com/2014/06/02/fortune-500-pritzker/.
  25.  “Profile: Pritzker Family, $32.5 Billion. 2020 America’s Richest Families Net Worth.” Forbes. December 16, 2020. Accessed July 10, 2022. https://www.forbes.com/profile/pritzker/?sh=1e8ec78f70f2.
  26. Gelles. “A Pritzker Sets Out With Ideas of Empire.”
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Nonprofit Information

  • Accounting Period: June - May
  • Tax Exemption Received: October 1, 2020

    • Available Filings

    Period Form Type Total revenue Total functional expenses Total assets (EOY) Total liabilities (EOY) Unrelated business income? Total contributions Program service revenue Investment income Comp. of current officers, directors, etc. Form 990
    2020 Jun Form 990 $2,702,832 $1,440,725 $1,840,355 $221,874 N $2,702,832 $0 $0 $141,534
    2019 Jun Form 990 $852,000 $743,073 $482,814 $126,440 N $852,000 $0 $0 $168,856 PDF

    Additional Filings (PDFs)

    Future Now Action

    611 PENNSYLVANIA AVE SE NUM 143
    WASHINGTON, DC 20003-4303