Talk:Fund for the Public Interest/Archive 2

Improving opening paragraph
I’m an editor with a conflict of interest and I’d like to help improve this page. I’ve disclosed my COI on my user page also. I’ll post my proposed edits here for discussion and comment. I’d like to start by revising the existing summary paragraph. I'll have additions and revisions for elsewhere in the article later. The proposed revised opening paragraph is below. Strikethrough text I'd like to remove/move later in the article; italicized text I'd like to add.

The Fund for the Public Interest (formerly known as the Fund for Public Interest Research and generally referred to as the FFPIR or "the Fund") is a 501(c)(4) non-profit organization that runs the public fundraising and canvassing operations for politically liberal nonprofit organizations in the United States that focus on public interest, environmental, and human rights issues. The Fund is the largest fundraiser for progressive these causes in the United States. FFPIR was set up in 1982 as the fundraising arm of the Public Interest Research Group (PIRGs), which was founded by Ralph Nader. The Fund has been named as a defendant in several lawsuits alleging unfair labor practices, including failing to pay its workers minimum wage.[2] CleanWater17 (talk) 00:38, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

I’m an editor with a conflict of interest and I'm working to help improve this page. I’ve disclosed my COI on my user page also. I've posted my edits to the lead section in the article. Here are my proposed edits for the structure of the article and the "Operations" section that I think should be the first section in the article.

Instead of the current outline, I'd like to restructure this way:

1. Operations

2. History

A. Impact

B. Labor Disputes

3. Academic Criticism

4. Notable Alumni

5. References

6. External Links

For the "Operations" section, I've combined elements of the existing history and organizational structure sections and added additional information. Strikethrough is text I'd like to remove; italicized text I'd like to add.

The Fund operates canvass offices, as well as other citizen engagement activities such as educating voters about issues, building the membership bases for grassroots groups, supporting grassroots advocacy (such as petition drives or letter-writing drives), and fundraising. Local directors hire canvassers to raise money for the Fund's partners and support its other campaign activities including media relations and coalition building. The Fund has canvassed for groups including the Sierra Club, the Human Rights Campaign, Environment America, and Fair Share and the Public Interest Research Groups (PIRGs).

''The Fund operates street canvasses and door canvasses. Street canvasses send staff to stand in pedestrian traffic areas and solicit passersby to support a campaign. Door canvasses may send canvassers to neighborhoods throughout the metropolitan area where the office is located, or engage in “camping canvasses” in which canvassers drive to areas much farther from the office, camp for several nights and canvass during the day.''

In 2010 2016, the Fund employed 10,500 7,899 people nationwide to knock on doors and make calls, raising $26.5 $23.5 million. In the early 2000s, the Fund operated 55 to 75 offices. Many of those were temporary offices, open only in the summer.

Canvassers are paid and often are college students working a summer job. The average employment of a canvasser lasts about two weeks, according to a 2003-2004 study. The same study noted that, of the canvassers who participated in the study in 2003 and were interviewed again in 2004, the average employment was roughly three months. CleanWater17 (talk) 13:13, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

I’m an editor with a conflict of interest and I’d like to help improve this page. I’ve disclosed my COI on my user page also. I've posted my edits to the lead and "Operations" sections in the article. Here are my proposed edits for the "History" section that I think should come next in the article.

For the "History" section, I've combined elements of the previous lead section and the existing history section, and added additional information. Strikethrough is text I'd like to remove; italicized text I'd like to add. (I also see that the footnotes are formatted two different ways and are repetitive, but I'll clean that up after all text revisions in the article are posted.)

"History" (level 1 heading)

The Fund was founded in 1982 to raise money and build membership for the state PIRGs. It was established as the Fund for Public Interest Research (and generally referred to as the FFPIR or "the Fund"). It changed its name to the Fund for the Public Interest in 2008. The Fund grew out of a Massachusetts Public Interest Research Group initiative campaign to pass the Bottle Bill where they first used door-to-door canvassing. The development of a membership and funding infrastructure independent of the campus chapters that had been until that time the center of the PIRG infrastructure reversed the decline in resources and influence that the PIRGs had been experiencing at that time, and initiated a shift in the PIRGs' organizational model that saw the previously campus-bound groups convert themselves into a mass-membership lobbying organization.

"Impact" (level 2 heading)

''The Fund has successfully raised funds and increased membership for the groups for which it canvasses. In the mid-2000s, for example, Greenpeace’s director said the Fund helped expand his organization’s membership base and provided significant income. As of 2005, an official with the Human Rights Campaign estimated that half of the organization’s members had been recruited by the Fund. The members recruited by the Fund have helped the groups it works for win campaigns such as adoption of a renewable electricity standard in California and protection for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.  Notable alumni of the Fund include Ken Ward, former deputy executive director of Greenpeace.''

"Labor Disputes" (level 2 heading)

From 2005 to 2012, the Fund was involved in a number of labor disputes. The Fund and its state-level Public Interest Research Groups (PIRGs) have faced numerous allegations of exploitative labor practices, and it has been described in popular media as "the liberal sweatshop." The most significant occurred in 2009, when the Fund settled a “$2.15 million class-action suit alleging it subjected workers to grueling hours without overtime pay." Canvassing employees regularly made an hourly rate less than minimum wage. Other disputes include the abrupt closure of the Fund's Los Angeles office after employees voted to unionize with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, and a finding by the office of the Labor Commissioner of the State of California in 2006 that the Fund had denied rest breaks to a worker. That year, U.S. PIRG joined conservative groups in publicly opposing the Obama Administration's 2006 rules that expanded worker overtime pay. In 2012, workers at the Fund's call center in Portland, Oregon, conducted an effort to unionize with Communications Workers of America. Thirteen pro-union workers were fired from the call center. One fired worker, David Neel, proved to a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) agent and a federal judge that his union activism was a factor in his firing. The federal judge ordered the Fund to reinstate Neel at his job. The Fund appealed the decision to the NLRB's five-member board in Washington, D.C. The Fund's appeal was denied, and The Fund was ordered to pay Neel $19,088 of backpay and interest, plus $7,000 for waiving his right to reinstatement.

CleanWater17 (talk) 14:55, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

Reply 30-OCT-2019

 * The requested changes could not be implemented because the necessary reasons for each change have not been provided.
 * In the section of text below titled Sample edit request, I have given an example for how information which is to be added or replaced should be suggested along with reasons for the additions and replacements:

 1. Please remove the third sentence from the second paragraph of the Sun section:
 * "The Sun's diameter is estimated to be approximately 25 miles in length."

2. Please add the following claim as the third sentence of the second paragraph of the Sun section:
 * "The Sun's diameter is estimated to be approximately 864,337 miles in length."

3. Using as the reference:

4. Reason for change being made:
 * "The previously given diameter was incorrect. The Harinath source indicates that the diameter is 864,337 miles, a figure which has been confirmed by sources in the Astonomers Almanac, Science Weekly, etc."

Regards, Spintendo  00:17, 31 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Kindly open a new edit request at your earliest convenience when ready to proceed with your reasons for the requested changes. Thank you!