The suggestion was made here yesterday that Funding the Future should turn itself into a think tank and seek more formal bases for funding for the work that we do.
I take the suggestions that are made here seriously, and this one was offered in good faith, so I think it requires an explanation as to why this is a route I really do not wish to go down.
I lived with institutional funding from charities, trade unions, academic sources, and more besides, for a long time. There are three things that I learned as a result.
The first is that funding organisations do not want to take risks. In particular, with the notable exception of one grant that I received from the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, no one ever wanted to fund thinking. In fact, they want to do the precise opposite. The vast majority of funding organisations and so-called think tanks do not want to risk any real thinking. Instead, they exist to perpetuate and promulgate their worldview, and the last thing they want to do is innovate in the process. That is because innovation involves risk, and almost all such organisations are risk-averse because they cannot face the idea that they might make a mistake, which possibility is always inherent in innovation.
Secondly, funders want deliverable outputs that they can measure. So, they require publications supplied, or (most especially) events organised, or they might hope for some measure of impact, which would usually be represented by interaction with the political system, which, however, also only happens if innovation is not involved, because politicians are as risk-averse as funders. However, the fact is that words on pages or in videos, or bums on seats, do not in any way indicate thinking. Almost invariably, their success depends upon the promotion of ideas already familiar.
Thirdly, there is considerable evidence that most funders are much more concerned with process than with output. This is particularly the case when you call yourself a think tank. Ticking all the right boxes, following all the right procedures, and conforming to all the funders' required policy requirements is vastly more important than actually questioning anything, including whether all those imposed standards are necessarily appropriate, because you would not be permitted to do that. The mindset the think tank administrator requires is not the mindset of the thinker, which is precisely why almost no supposed left-wing think tank I can call to mind actually publishes anything of much worth.
It is, in fact, unsurprising that if you do want to look for any form of left-wing thinking you have to look to individual innovators, some of whom will use Substack, others YouTube, but few of whom will choose to align themselves in any way with a think tank, because they know that they would not fit in there, not least because these places are no more receptive of those with neurodiversity (which most genuine thinkers have) than most neoliberal organisations.
The result is that I have no desire to move towards this form of funding again, unless someone is willing to offer a grant for free thinking, without my having to define in advance what the outputs might be, precisely because the process of thinking means that this is impossible, and therefore almost invariably contrary to what a fund requires for their own box-ticking exercise when they come to the end of the grant appraisal process.
This is why Funding the Future, via Tax Research LLP, which is the organisation behind both this blog and the RichardJMurphy YouTube channel, relies upon two forms of funding at present. One is income from YouTube, which is highly variable and, to be candid, quite unreliable, and the second is donations.
What we do know is that although our traffic on YouTube rose significantly during the course of last year, income per month, with the odd exception of November, fell in the second half of the year compared to the first, and there is little to explain that. The result is that without donations, we would not cover costs.
Admittedly, some new projects, like the live events, have yet to pay any return, and to date, the PDF shop has been useful in generating some income, but has not really tipped the balance of any equation, and so donations remain key, as does the diversity of contribution that they supply. That is not least because they indicate that the whole process of alternative thinking, which I am trying to promote, is being appreciated by you, the reader.
This said, there are three things I wish to stress. First, if you, or a fund you know, wish to promote genuine alternative thinking in the face of the crisis we face right now, I am open to discussing funding. Don't get me wrong, having a bigger margin for error in what we do would be useful, and it is small right now.
Secondly, if you have, or do, donate, thank you. We genuinely appreciate you doing so, as donations keep this show on the road. We could survive with less, but our ambition would have to be significantly curtailed as a result.
Thirdly, please do not consider making a donation if you have other important priorities, including making ends meet. I really do not wish you to do that. I am not saying I do not value getting some return on my effort here, but that is not my primary motivation for undertaking the activities I do, and I would never wish to cover the risks of running this operation at the cost of someone else's need. That would be entirely wrong and contrary to the principles on which this channel is founded.
To summarise, money is important, but just as in the real economy, real resources are the actual constraints on what we can achieve at present. I am probably blessed with as many resources as I can use right now, and over-expansion would be of no benefit unless we were to seriously reimagine how our production schedules would work, which would cost a lot more. So, thank you for your support, but let's continue to walk, and not run as yet. I hope my logic is clear. And thanks for everything.
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Thanks Richard, for this comprehensive, informative and thought provoking response to my naive think tank notion 🙂 The three things you stress at the end are constructive and important, and if my numbers ever come up I’ll see what I can do about that grant.
Keep up your excellent work, it’s of vital importance for the world we find ourselves in. Thank you again.
As an aside, the three things you learned are remarkably similar to my own experience trying to get things done in a very large public sector delivery organisation…
Thanks 🙂
Having spent the final 27 years of my working life working in the third sector (faith/community sector) I completely agree. Funding comes with a cost, and compromises independence. Institutions become more important than ideas.
YouTube can (and do) cut off monetisation opportunities at a stroke if told to do so from their controllers.
Brussels is infested with think tanks and NGOs. Without exception they toe the party line. One or two produce reports with useful numbers (=data) that can be verified. Otherwise, they produce little that is original or thought provoking. Sad but unsurprising out turns.
Agreed
I git very bored with it.
AI will make it worse.
Yippee! Thorough agreement.
There are 3 levels of mind-changing. The most common, easiest to do, is concerned with facts and superficial attitudes. You can change your mnd on whether, for example, bananas are wholesome, without any repercussions on your self-image. Second level lis a real change of perception, and that’s what I think this blog is doing. Deciding that the economy is not like a household is a good example, because there are so many repercussions in other things you think, and you’ve made judgements on these other principles that you can now see are wrong. It’s hard to accept that you have made deep and far-reaching mistakes, even with the best intentions.
Even deeper third level is the sort of mental change which keeps you awake at night when it happens, feeling one’s blocks of thought crashing and re-organising themselves. For me these are rare and significant, even life-changing. In my experience this is entirely self-driven.
Thanks
The last happens to me, quite a lot.
Well, that’s that is sorted then, methinks?
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it!” (Upton Sinclair).
This applies whenever you take money… you are wise to steer clear.
I agree with the premise of the article, but it leaves me thinking. Neoliberal ideas didn’t win simply because they were persuasive, but because they were organised through institutions that translate ideas into policy, media narratives and sustained, organised political pressure.
I think the deeper problem is that thinkers, unions, activists, academics and pressure groups are not organised into a structure capable of sustaining coordinated political pressure with proactive and consistent messaging the way the right does.
Many pressure groups organise protests, signs, petitions, etc around specific problems, yet those problems often share the same underlying cause — a false neoliberal economic narrative. But without challenging the narrative, victories are rare or temporary.
Blogs, Substack and YouTube are excellent for informing and challenging assumptions, but they interrupt common sense without yet generating durable, organised political pressure.
So the issue for me isn’t whether Funding the Future should become a traditional think tank, but whether there’s a way to build coordination that preserves free thinking while allowing anti-neoliberal ideas to accumulate and exert real political pressure.
Thanks
Your last para is very helpful for a discussion we are having today
Funding the Future T shirts? I’d buy one if it wasn’t too expensive.
🙂
There will be mugs at the Cambridge event
Richard, what you’ve written here resonates strongly with me, not only because of your experience with funders and think tanks, but because it reflects something much wider about how political and policy spaces now operate. Increasingly, the institutions that claim to speak for ordinary people have become closed, professionalised and inaccessible. They talk about poverty, but the people living with deprivation are rarely in the room.
In the last few months I’ve been invited to events by both JRF and the Labour Party. The ticket price for each was over £100. That alone tells you who these events are really for. If you’re living in or near deprivation — as millions are — you simply cannot afford to attend. The result is that discussions about poverty take place in rooms full of professionals, consultants and policy insiders, while those with lived experience are priced out. It isn’t malicious, but it is structural. These organisations speak about people, not with them.
That’s why spaces like this blog matter so much. When I contribute here, I feel listened to. Not because you agree with everything, but because the conversation is open, human and unmediated. In a strange way, this comment section already functions as a kind of “people’s think tank”: decentralised, curious, grounded in lived experience and free from the gatekeeping that dominates the formal policy world. Many of us feel irrelevant in the institutions that are supposed to represent us — whether that’s JRF, Labour, or the wider policy establishment — but we do not feel irrelevant here.
It makes me wonder whether the future of political thinking lies not in traditional think tanks at all, but in something far more democratic. We now have the tools to create genuinely participatory spaces where ordinary people can propose ideas, debate them, refine them and see them taken seriously. Not committees, not bureaucracy — just a simple platform where collective intelligence can flourish without being filtered through funders, administrators or party machines. If political parties had anything like this, members might feel less like spectators and more like participants. And if they won’t build it, perhaps citizens will have to do so themselves.
In a world where institutions have become closed, maybe the next step is to open thinking up — and let the people back into the process
A great deal to agree with.
I understand, Richard.
Just to inform you and followers that there are a few of us sketching plans for a Steve Keen Institute. Nothing concrete yet, but the idea of having affiliates in every country is appealing.
Noted…
Its a creepy coincidence , but someone today sent me a link to a paper which is a ‘hauntological’ study of the research institution/think tank where I was until it was closed by Thatcher.
All those decades ago many of the issues you raise about the effects of funding were pertinent. But we had a five year Ford foundation grant – so although we were sitting between academia and Government and had a remit which included improving how things were done – particularly longer term implementation of urban development – we did for a few years have remarkable freedom . There were Marx-influenced studies, systems theory etc etc and lots of international seminars and conferences.
The dead hand of the funding/political context you mention gradually squeezed the life out of the place. Thatcher’s Alan Walters was on the governing body – enough said. So unless you can tap some base funding prepared to provide general support , based on your track record – you are right to be wary of project funding.
Ford Foundation grants have a reputation for killing innovation dead by demanding process. I think that is deliberate.