Massachusetts Public Interest Research Group
Encyclopedia
Massachusetts Public Interest Research Group (MASSPIRG) is a non-profit organization
that is one of the largest of the state PIRG
organizations. It works on a variety of political activities, including textbook trading on college campuses. They also provide internships and work study jobs for students on Massachusetts college campuses.Along with the Massachusetts Service Alliance, MASSPIRG helped create Massachusetts Community Water Watch, an organization that works specifically on environmental political issues.
MassPIRG has come under fire in several schools, where students wish to see PIRGS funding cut.
by Columbia University sociologist Dana Fisher, is based on an ethnographic study she did in a stratified random sample of fund canvass offices during the summer of 2003. Fisher charges the corporatized fundraising model (of which the Fund is an example) with mistreating idealistic young people by using them as interchangeable parts and providing them with insufficient training; Fisher also believes that the outsourcing of grassroots organizing by groups like the Sierra Club and Greenpeace to organizations like the Fund has led to the decay of grassroots infrastructure and opportunities for involvement on the left (A summary of this book can be found at: "http://www.sup.org/html/book_pages/0804752176/Press%20Release.pdf"). [6][7] The Fund has created a website to respond to a few of the criticisms raised by the book: "http://www.canvassingworks.org". The site includes testimony by former Fund staff who have moved into leading roles in other progressive organizations and other progressive leaders, including U.S. Representative Jan Schakowsky (IL), Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope, Dr. Woody Holton (Associate Professor of American history at the University of Richmond), and Randy Hayes of the Rainforest Action Network.
Non-profit organization
Nonprofit organization is neither a legal nor technical definition but generally refers to an organization that uses surplus revenues to achieve its goals, rather than distributing them as profit or dividends...
that is one of the largest of the state PIRG
Public Interest Research Groups
The US Public Interest Research Group is a political lobby non-profit organization in the United States and Canada, composed of self-governing affiliates at the state and province level. Its fundraising arm is the Fund for Public Interest Research...
organizations. It works on a variety of political activities, including textbook trading on college campuses. They also provide internships and work study jobs for students on Massachusetts college campuses.Along with the Massachusetts Service Alliance, MASSPIRG helped create Massachusetts Community Water Watch, an organization that works specifically on environmental political issues.
MassPIRG has come under fire in several schools, where students wish to see PIRGS funding cut.
History
The Public Interest Research Groups emerged at the behest of Ralph Nader who, during a college speaking tour, called on students to form political groups.Criticism and Rebuttal
The book "Activism, Inc: How the Outsourcing of Grassroots Campaigns Is Strangling Progressive Politics in America"by Columbia University sociologist Dana Fisher, is based on an ethnographic study she did in a stratified random sample of fund canvass offices during the summer of 2003. Fisher charges the corporatized fundraising model (of which the Fund is an example) with mistreating idealistic young people by using them as interchangeable parts and providing them with insufficient training; Fisher also believes that the outsourcing of grassroots organizing by groups like the Sierra Club and Greenpeace to organizations like the Fund has led to the decay of grassroots infrastructure and opportunities for involvement on the left (A summary of this book can be found at: "http://www.sup.org/html/book_pages/0804752176/Press%20Release.pdf"). [6][7] The Fund has created a website to respond to a few of the criticisms raised by the book: "http://www.canvassingworks.org". The site includes testimony by former Fund staff who have moved into leading roles in other progressive organizations and other progressive leaders, including U.S. Representative Jan Schakowsky (IL), Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope, Dr. Woody Holton (Associate Professor of American history at the University of Richmond), and Randy Hayes of the Rainforest Action Network.
Notable members
- Janet Domenitz
- Margie Alt
- Frank Gorke
- Surf Del Mar
- Joyce Elaine RoopJoyce Elaine Roop-Biography:Born in Chicago, Roop attended the University of California at Santa Barbara, where she helped found the and was then was elected to the initial board of directors...
Affiliate Organizations
- the Fund for Public Interest Research
- Environment Massachusetts
- Human Rights CampaignHuman Rights CampaignThe Human Rights Campaign is the United States' largest LGBT advocacy group and lobbying organization; according to the HRC, it has more than one million members and supporters...
- Sierra ClubSierra ClubThe Sierra Club is the oldest, largest, and most influential grassroots environmental organization in the United States. It was founded on May 28, 1892, in San Francisco, California, by the conservationist and preservationist John Muir, who became its first president...