The Progress Unity Fund (PUF) is a radical-left group that fiscally sponsors activist organizations, including the ANSWER Coalition, Women Organized to Resist and Defend (WORD), the National Committee to Free the Cuban Five, and Pivot to Peace.
PUF is closely connected to the Workers World Party (WWP) and its break-away group, the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), both of which are revolutionary Marxist-Leninist parties. The fiscally sponsored organizations and the socialist parties often participate together in events, such as International Women’s Day protests. The leaderships of all groups often overlap. [1] [2]
PUF also funds the Liberation Alliance for Economic and Social Change, and the Liberation Fund LA. In 2020, the left-wing activism groups received over $21,000 and over $7,000 from PUF respectively. [3]
The Progress Unity Fund fiscally sponsors Act Now to Stop War and End Racism, commonly known as the ANSWER Coalition, a radical-left group that opposes American foreign policy and Israel. ANSWER has been described as “an outgrowth” [4] and a “front” for the communist Workers World Party. Several of ANSWER’s leaders, including spokesperson Brian Becker were WWP members. [5] ANSWER also has overlapping membership with the Party for Socialism and Liberation, including its former presidential candidate Peta Lindsay. [6]
ANSWER and PUF share a headquarters in San Francisco. [7]
ANSWER has also been fiscally sponsored by the Alliance for Global Justice, an outgrowth of the Nicaragua Network that supported the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua. [8] [9]
The Progress Unity Fund fiscally sponsors Women Organized to Resist and Defend (WORD), a radical-feminist group which supports abortion access, welfare for women, and closing the gender pay gap. [10] [11] PUF was formed by the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), [12] and has overlapping members. [13] Former PSL presidential candidate Peta Lindsay is Word’s co-founder. [14]
The Progress Unity Fund fiscally sponsored the National Committee to Free the Cuban Five (FFF), a group founded in 2001 to advocate for the release of five Cuban intelligence officers deployed to spy on the Cuban exile population in Miami. The five were arrested in 1998 for espionage and conspiracy to commit murder. [15] [16]
Rosa Penate, former director of PUF, is a member of FFF and chaired numerous rallies. [17]
The Progress Unity Fund fiscally sponsors Pivot to Peace (PTP), a group which advocates for peaceful relations between the United States and China. According to PTP, the rise of the Chinese economy has caused a “dangerous reorientation” in the Pentagon’s stance toward China, resulting in “a palpable feeling of fear, animosity and even hatred… toward the People’s Republic of China… Chinese people in general, Chinese-American citizens and other Asian peoples in the United States.” [18] [19]
Signers of PTP’s mission statement include members of the anti-Taiwanese independence Committee to Promote Reunification of China, Chinese for Affirmative Action, Popular Resistance, the ANSWER Coalition, as well as former Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein. [20]
The Progress Unity Fund does not reveal its leadership or members on its website. [21] As of the organization’s last tax disclosure in 2020, PUF is led by Susan Muysenberg, [22] who has written for the Peace and Freedom Party, a feminist socialist group, [23] and Liberation News. [24]
PUF was formerly run by co-directors Keith Pavlik, Rosa Penate, and Brenda Sandburg. Pavlik’s home formerly and possibly currently served as the headquarters of PUF. Pavlik has written extensively for socialist publications; in one article, he claimed that humanity used to exist in classless matriarchal societies where all wealth was shared, but as economies developed, the “ruling class” implemented family structures and private property to hoard wealth, leading to global systemic oppression. [25]
In 2001, all three of PUF’s directors had written articles for the Workers World Party’s magazine, Workers World. [26]
Progress Unity Fund’s annual revenues varied from $81,000 to $240,000 between 2011 and 2018. In 2019, PUF’s revenue jumped to just under $2 million. [27]
In 2016, after a protest against President Donald Trump by the ANSWER Coalition, the Daily Caller asked the PUF to reveal its funding sources. PUF did not respond. [28]
In 2019, the PUF received $9,000 from the Lef Foundation. [29]