Cash, Speed, and Trust

San Francisco Magazine Lauren Smiley Clark Miller A Bay Area–based network of wealthy progressives is testing a new model for funding the resistance: Give fast and get out of the way. Last spring, a political organizer from Philadelphia named Bryan Mercer dialed into a videoconference. Mercer, who is black, is on the steering committee of a two-year-old nonprofit called 215 People’s Alliance. The half dozen individuals on the conference line were members of a national network ofwealthy donor...