Could these be the most notable astroturfing efforts in Redwood City?

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Fake grassroots efforts or Astroturfing by local media and non-profit organizations (NPO) seem rampant around San Mateo County and especially in Redwood City. To spot the procedure we need to ask a few simple questions.

How long has the NPO existed?

There will always be some short-term political group created for just one occasion. Remember the ‘Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.’ It came, it did its dirty job, it went away. By astroturfing standards, this has to be regarded as a success. Another one would be ‘Save Our Tips.’ A bottom-up movement (grassroots) takes time and considerable effort to get going. A top-down approach (fake grassroots) – led by a political party, some think tank, or SuperPAC – is recognized by its speed, agility and success.

And then there are groups that have existed for 30, 40, or 50 years but never achieved success. Admittedly, some topics might be harder than others, but success is the lifeblood of good organizations.

Hint to spot Astroturfing: Organizations that exist only for a minute should raise suspicion. Organizations that have existed for a long time but never seem to have success look weird, too.

Is there a clear path to success?

Is there a known solution? Most research needed for success is published by universities, think tanks, and research organizations and is available for free. Successful companies love to give interviews about what makes them successful. Retired CEOs keep writing books about how they achieved success. Most solutions are already best practices in some other state or country, and they love to talk about them. History is often the best teacher. ‘What did we do before all turned to rubble and ashes?’ Basically, if you really wanted answers, there are plenty of ways to do so on almost any topic. As luck has it, the simple and cheap solution is often also the best.

Hint to spot Astroturfing: Especially in an unsuccessful NPO, ask if the salaried leadership is spending any time and effort on research and development (R&D). The goal must be to find and understand everything about these simple solutions, and only research will get you there. An organization led by a small leadership group full of opinions and biases is doomed to fail.

Is there professional leadership?

Real grassroots efforts are a bottom-up approach started by volunteers with amateur leadership. They are spending their own time and money on things they care about. This can be exhausting, and if there isn’t success, the effort dies down quickly. In rare cases, when there is actually success, the movement might grow. People love being part of a successful team, and in that case, you can put together a group of amateur leaders running this as a team effort.

But if donations and grants look solid and long-term, hiring one or two full-time helpers for certain tasks might be a good move. These should be people who have something the amateurs don’t have: either a solid background in the field, a record of success, or some special skills that catapult the movement forward. A group promoting ADA compliance or civil rights would do so much better with its own lawyer to fill out the occasional form or send some threatening letters.

Hint to spot Astroturfing: Which NPO has money to waste on unsuccessful leadership? Which legit grant giver wants to lose credibility by being affiliated with an unsuccessful group?

Money is a terrible master but an excellent servant.

When an organization with professional leadership has no success, they often use the ‘no-money’ excuse. And if people buy into that too easily, why change that strategy? Salaried leadership quickly becomes over-focused on fundraising because their main goal is to keep their salary. As soon as more donations come in, you can hire more people to fundraise. That is, of course, the pyramid scheme of many NPOs: to fundraise for fundraising’s sake. Once leadership is hooked by those salaries, they start not caring where the money comes from.

Hint to spot Astroturfing: How can an NPO be around for 30, 40, or 50 years without reaching success? Should we really believe it’s lack of funding, naiveté in leadership, organizational incompetence, or is there a real method to the madness?

“Whose bread I eat, his song I sing.” [ German Proverb ]

Virtue Signaling

Paid leadership, but no success, is certainly the most important clue to finding an Astroturfing NPO. But bad leadership and no success puts off the real grass-rooters, the donors, or the grant givers at one point or another. In that case, the NPO will use various layers to hide the ‘astroturfing’ side of their business:

Pretending to always be getting oh-so-close.
Taking credit for success others achieved.
Taking credit for ‘accidental success’.
Using ‘virtue signaling‘ to make themselves unassailable and immune to critique.
Associate yourself with something completely different like ‘feeding the poor’, caring for cats, or pretending to help ‘Kars for Kids’.

In the last few years, the Equity Hire (based on gender, youth, age, race, physiological properties, hair color, etc.) has been the most used move. Blomberg wrote that 94% of the headcount increase in 2021 went to people of color – many companies announced this very loudly. Of course, many of those people were also the first to lose their jobs in 2020 – few companies have ever mentioned that. The easiest way to look at this is that if there are no signs that the equity hire does anything to improve the equity situation for all people, then the equity hire might have just been an “equity hire” to do a little bit of virtue signaling.

Spot the Astroturfers!

“For [good] politicians and urbanists alike, the connection between the shape of our cities and the shape of our bodies is clear.” [Article about Oklahoma City]

Since Safe-Routes-To-School (SRTS) is one of the most visible failures in Redwood City, we will be talking about that here a lot. Redwood City has over 20 schools with absolutely no bike lanes. No school has even the smallest of bike-route plans going. The largest, most important, and central youth sports park we have, has zero bike lanes leading there. And we will be looking at three organizations closely related to this valiant effort and cry for help. All three organizations would highly benefit from SRTS – in fact it would be the cheapest, easiest, and best solution to start achieving their goals:

RWC2020: For over 50 years, in charge of bringing communities together (e.g., through Safe-Routes-To-School) and still sees “60% of RCSD children are low-income, 44% of fifth graders are overweight, 19% have childhood asthma.” Back in January, we had Simon-AI give us simple solutions.
RCEF: For over 41 years, in charge of “Improving Education” and standing by silently while RCSD’s education spending went from over 50% to an unlawful 28%. Back in February, we had our gentler Simone-AI explain the problem.
SVBC: The “overarching goal” of the Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition (SVBC) is a bike mode share (BMS) of 10%. But despite the fact that America is a country with a great bicycle culture, SVBC has managed to keep BMS in San Mateo County at a stable 1%. We have discussed the simple solution before, it’s a solution everybody wants, but SVBC’s salaried leadership still seems to despise it.

Do these really sound like unlucky NPOs with unfortunate leadership? Or do these sound like Astroturfing in disguise?

More Information

RWC2000, RWC2020, Redwood City Together: Why our work is so important
SVBC: arguing against bike lanes for children in working class neighborhoods
RCEF: redlining for over 40 years now
Research: The Influence of Corporate Front-Group Stealth Campaigns
Last Week Tonight: Astroturfing
Business Insider: Fake Grassroots Movements Started By Corporations
News Literacy Project: As Fake As It Sounds

Editor’s Note: The views and opinions expressed in all blog posts are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Redwood City Pulse or its staff.