Colorblindness and Contributions: How Racial Ideology Moderates Donations to Environmental Social Movement Organizations

• In Event: 50417 - Environmental Movements and Counter Movements

Abstract

Social movement organizations (SMOs) rely on external support to pursue their mission, including financial support from donors. As such, these organizations may forego initiatives or tactics that do not appeal to their constituents, such as racially coded activities, out of concern of losing external support. This dynamic is especially relevant for environmental SMOs (ESMOs), who have faced considerable pressure to integrate racial equality into their missions and programs from a rising and popular environmental justice (EJ) movement. We use ESMOs as an exemplar of the challenge facing SMOs attempting to address racial equity. Using a survey experiment (n=1220), we examine levels of donations for racially unmarked and racially marked ESMOs, finding that including racially marked EJ initiatives does not reduce average level of donation nor willingness to donate in the future. We find that this null effect is driven by individuals with high levels of color-blind racial ideology substantially reducing their level of donation and individuals low in color-blind racial ideology increasing their donation levels. This study demonstrates that rather than losing material support by integrating racial equity, SMOs are more likely to experience a shift in their underlying constituency without a loss of resources, including ESMOs struggling with EJ initiatives.

Authors

• Sam L Castonguay, Michigan State University

• Dylan Bugden, Washington State University