“A rock star, a Kennedy, and a social worker walk into a bar…”
One warm day in May 2001, Ted Kennedy called me out of the blue. My first reaction, after being thrilled, was that I was a little bewildered. By this point I had come to know Senator Kennedy, but not in a “hey, how you doing,” casual-phone-call way. I was just an awestruck kid when I first met him in the late eighties, and our relationship had grown more solid during the Ryan White and ADA days. In 1992, when he married Victoria Reggie, she and I became friends by working together on gun control issues. My partner, Vince, and I began to cross paths with Victoria and Senator Kennedy socially; we hosted dinners they attended, and they returned the invitation by welcoming us at special events over the years. I even got to sail with them on Kennedy’s beloved yacht Maya off the coast of Cape Cod.
One especially treasured memory is of a dinner at our home in DC a few years later in early 2008 where the senator insisted—rather unequivocally—that I not compromise by replacing a wood mast with a faux-painted aluminum mast on my almost-completed sailboat, a dream long in the making. He told me, “Look, on a beautiful evening after a lovely day sailing you’ll be on shore and looking back across the marina and there you’ll see her, the sun shining on her mast, and it will glow gold—a beautiful color that only a wood mast can achieve. And in that moment you will say to yourself, ‘I have the prettiest girl at the dance.’” I had to admit he had a point. I told him I looked forward to having the Senator and Vicki come to Lewes for a weekend to sail with us when the boat was finished.
That day never came. Two months later, Senator Kennedy had just been diagnosed with brain cancer when I christened my boat Ceili and sailed her to Lewes. At sundown I was sitting on my porch admiring my new boat and as the light hit it just so, the mast glowed in gold, just as he promised. I grabbed a camera, took the photo, and sent it to the senator, just released from the hospital and recuperating at home in Hyannis Port, with a thank-you note including his quote at the bottom. To this day, when the moment is right and the sun is setting, I can hear his voice and am grateful for his advice, for I do have the prettiest girl at the dance.
Vicki has sailed with us, an able member of the crew. She is also captain of a beautiful Herreshoff wood sailboat named LaBoheme given to her by her husband and named for the opera they went to the night they were engaged.
In any event, on that day in May when the senator called, the call was less than thirty seconds long. I couldn’t really hear what he wanted me to do through his clipped speech and thick Boston accent, but it sounded like his nephew Bobby wanted to talk to me about working with Bon Jovi on AIDS. It didn’t really matter what he was asking; when Ted Kennedy called, you said yes.
A few days later the phone rang again, and I told the rock star on the other end of the line that one big challenge on these issues would be explaining to members of Congress why a rock star from New Jersey cared about AIDS and poverty in Africa. That’s when he interrupted. I was nervous I’d offended him when there was a long pause. “New Jersey? I think you may have me mixed up…This is Bono. I’m from Ireland—have you heard of U2?” Well, that made more sense. In 1999 Bono had called Eunice Shriver, whom he had met at Special Olympics, to enlist her help in getting Senator Kennedy to assist in the US government leading on a millennium initiative to drop the debt of third world countries. Eunice did not connect Bono to the senator but instead recommended that he talk to Bobby Shriver, her son, about this project. Bobby and Bono had known each other through working together on A Very Special Christmas album the year prior but I think he was unaware that Bobby was also a former executive at the World Bank. According to his mother, Bobby was perfect for the job.
Despite the awkward start we soon became a team—Bono, Bobby, Jamie Drummond, Lucy Matthew, Scott Hatch, and me. The slipup did me no long-term harm. Over the next fifteen years, I recalled that conversation with Bono more than once, along with other funny moments shared over late-night meals and long plane rides. We shared tense moments when huge sums of money and thousands of lives hung in the balance. To this day I stand in awe of one of the best examples of credible engagement by a rock star or celebrity I’ve ever witnessed, one I believe serves as a model for any celebrity or cause that wants more from the relationship than fund-raising and one-day society column stories.
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After my time working on the ADA and the Ryan White Act, I decided to make it a priority to pull back and take some time to evaluate what I wanted to do next. I started the Sheridan Group right after leaving AIDS Action, and it was time to reassess. I wanted whatever came next to be meaningful, to make a difference to other people, and to be personally rewarding. But I wasn’t naïve: I knew if I wanted to make it in Washington, I had to be shrewd and calculating and make friends with the right people. I also decided I wasn’t going to be a one-trick pony or a single-issue guy.
I’d be committing a lie of omission if I didn’t say that some of my calculations about my next move were a little less than saintly. I needed to make a living, and more than that, I needed money to mount a campaign for Congress in New York in 1994, a lifelong goal. That was my reason for opening a consulting practice: I had no intention of building a business or a firm. It was a tactic in a strategy, a means to a larger end—to pursue public service in elected office. But as fate would have it, I found that my first clients were not only passionate about great issues but also great leaders and soon fast friends. My practice wasn’t developing a business model as much as it was developing into a series of relationships that tapped into a personal sense of commitment, loyalty, and satisfaction. The fulfillment of working with others in a creative and energetic practice—free of dysfunctional boards in particular—was freeing and exhilarating.
I’d also like to say that I came to the idea of working to help the world’s poorest people rise up out of poverty on my own—but in reality I was pushed. Hard. The guy doing the pushing was someone I couldn’t ignore, and the idea was presented in a brilliant way that made me think we actually had a shot at success. Vicki Kennedy had mentioned me to her nephew, Bobby Shriver, as someone who might be able to help with AIDS and debt forgiveness for the poorest countries in the world, in particular in Africa. The truth was I didn’t know anything about AIDS in Africa, and nothing at all about debt forgiveness. I actually tried to tell that to Bobby, but he didn’t listen.
My relationship with Ted and Vicki Kennedy was already a long-standing and meaningful one. I got to know the senator when I worked at the Child Welfare League of America—he was a champion of a number of bills I worked on, including the Abandoned Infants Assistance Act and the Fair Housing Amendments Act of 1985 (which protected families with children from discrimination in rental housing). I got along with his staff very well, and his staff director Tom Rollins was very kind to me and my causes. I grew even closer to his health team through our work together on AIDS, particularly Michael Iskowitz and Terry Beirn. Vicki and I became friends after she married Ted, and we worked together on commonsense gun policy.
Aside from the fact that I’d do most anything Ted Kennedy thought was a good idea, it turned out his nephew Bobby’s mission was one that I immediately recognized as worthy: debt forgiveness for the poorest countries in the world. When developing countries borrow money from the World Bank or the IMF (and often they have no choice due to the pressures of free trade agreements and other factors too complicated to lay out here), they are required to pay back the original amount borrowed plus interest. As a vicious cycle took root in the 1980s and 1990s, most of the money African nations were receiving from foreign aid was going to paying back previous loans instead of supporting the starving, impoverished people who desperately needed help. Thanks to compounding interest, by 2000 and 2001, for every dollar the countries in Africa borrowed, they owed eight dollars: no country, no matter how economically robust, could pay back that sort of debt. Forgiving national debts would enable countries to make use of their own natural resources; build infrastructure like roads, railways, and schools; create better access to food and health care; and set the path for a new generation free from the cycle of poverty. The idea of debt forgiveness had picked up steam as the new millennium approached and Pope John Paul II had declared the year 2000 as a Year of Jubilee: a time of releasing people from bondage and debt.
The concept of a jubilee connected to economic concerns and serving as a time for release from bondage has been around for thousands of years—and the year 2000 provided the development community an opportunity to hop on board, taking the lead of the religious community and heralding this as the perfect moment to forgive third world debt.
Bono was first approached by development advocate (and now close friend) Jamie Drummond, who later became the executive director of DATA and then director of global strategy at ONE. A part of the cause from the very start who remains dedicated to this day, Jamie has provided the second view on this issue, which you will find at the end of this chapter. Jamie knew of Bono’s wildly successful involvement with the Live Aid concerts some fifteen years earlier, organized to help with famine relief in Africa. If you’re old enough, you might remember the anthem “We Are the World” or watching Mick Jagger create a wardrobe malfunction for Tina Turner by practically ripping off her dress. The epic Live Aid efforts raised $200 million. But Jamie made the point to Bono that one single African country, Ethiopia, paid $500 million every single year to service the debt it owed to the World Bank and IMF. It was time to do something more.
And so they did. Jubilee 2000 was a coalition formed of American faith-based organizations that were attempting to solve this problem. Their efforts were proving fruitless until Bono and Bobby joined the effort and enlisted the help of Congressman John Kasich, the chairman of the House Budget Committee. The result was a remarkable achievement, the US Congress committing $769 million to multilateral debt relief and promises from Tony Blair and the UK to get to 100 percent debt forgiveness for the world’s most heavily indebted poor countries and to convince other members of the G8 to do the same. The new millennium had begun, the issue of debt forgiveness was in the headlines, but the work was far from over.
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Bono and Bobby’s relationship was now forged and their commitment was solid. As to how Bobby Shriver came to this work, he virtually had no choice: he had it in his blood. The son of Sargent Shriver Jr., who started the Peace Corps and created President Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty programs (e.g., Head Start, the Job Corps), and Eunice Kennedy Shriver, who founded the Special Olympics, Bobby was raised to believe that helping people, on the biggest scale possible, was not only doable but morally necessary.
Bono and Bobby both saw extreme poverty and AIDS as two of the most perplexing challenges facing the developing world but in particular Africa. After the success of the millennium debt-forgiveness campaign, they took the next step of founding the group DATA—“a double acronym meant to position the group as a nexus between the nonprofit development world (debt, AIDS, trade, Africa) and the results-oriented political world (democracy, accountability, transparency in Africa).” Of course, the name was meant to also indicate a no-nonsense, just-the-facts approach to getting things done.
And Bobby knew that to get anything done in Washington they’d need to hire professional lobbyists and strategists. Bono was an extraordinary guy—and he was aware of the power he could wield—but he didn’t know how Washington worked. He did, however, have some friends in high places on the Hill, including John Kasich, a Republican congressman from Ohio. Bobby and Bono started asking for recommendations; they needed lobbyists to work with both the Republicans and the Democrats. Kasich recommended Scott Hatch, a former Republican leadership staffer, and Bobby’s uncle, Senator Ted Kennedy, recommended me to deal with the Democrats. When I came on to this cause, I knew my devout Catholic grandmother would be proud. No one less than the pope himself was already behind this one.
Scott Hatch and I came from dramatically different political circles. Scott was a huge U2 fan—and still is. I, as you might have guessed, didn’t have any great working knowledge of Bono’s day job, but I loved his passion, brilliance, boldness, and devotion. In any event, both Scott and I were deeply practical and fiercely political, so we got along very well. Luckily, there were a few other hardworking and supremely smart people in the trenches with us. Jamie Drummond was now working with Bono full-time on his advocacy and public interest agenda, and we also had the help of Lucy Matthew, Bono’s chief of staff. Tom Hart, lead lobbyist for the Episcopal Church and a leader in the Jubilee campaign, joined the DATA staff about a year later.
We got started in earnest in 2001. The big push to Jubilee 2000 was over, and we now had a George W. Bush administration to contend with. Bono had made good inroads during Clinton’s administration, with the president even agreeing to erase $6 billion in third world debt thanks in no small part to the Irishman’s haranguing. But the sad truth of how Washington really works was a lesson Bono hadn’t yet learned. As a Time magazine piece later noted, “Bono was very pleased with himself until he learned that he hadn’t actually accomplished anything that would make its way into law. Congress hadn’t signed off.” The article then quoted him saying, “When I first arrived in Washington I asked, ‘Who’s Elvis here? Who do I have to speak to to change the world?’ Then I find out that even though the president says yes and even though he speaks with a twang, he’s not Elvis. Congress is Elvis in America.”
When Bush took office in 2001, most people in the development world feared that third world debt and AIDS in Africa were going to be shoved to the bottom of the agenda. Bush himself had basically said as much. But our team was undeterred. We would do as much as we could as quickly as we could—while we had some momentum from the previous administration. We figured out early that our value to the new Bush administration was to connect our ideas to his campaign theme of being a “compassionate conservative.” In that simple connection we found ample political capital to move big ideas and big money into our agenda. Bono had already created credibility with Christian conservatives thanks to Jubilee 2000, and his uber-celebrity status helped us broker the ideas behind DATA as a continuation of Bush’s Christian-tinged idealism in the White House and on Capitol Hill.
Bono had already made twenty-four trips to Washington, DC, before he began working on what would become DATA, all below the radar screen. But even so, our commitment at DATA was to maintain a very low profile as we began work. Bono openly told members of Congress he knew little to nothing of the American political process but was willing to learn in exchange for a fair hearing on his idea to alleviate suffering from poverty and AIDS. The humility factor was second in value only to Bono and Bobby’s determination to stick with this issue and to do hard lifting. They were in it for the long haul. This was not red carpeting, or a photo op, or a PR stunt—it was a sincere long-term commitment to serious work and their dedication and commitment was inspiring.
Bobby had a simple motto for DATA that we all adopted: “We get the check!” That meant our job and our focus wasn’t to create programs or offer services; our job was to apply political pressure to fund programs and find new ways to accelerate progress on AIDS and extreme poverty. Our agenda was right there in our name: debt (making sure we stayed on track with the Jubilee 2000 debt-relief promises), AIDS (getting lifesaving drugs to those who needed them but couldn’t afford them), trade (looking for policy ideas to build economies), and Africa (our geographic focus). Our discipline to clear ideas with serious merit allowed us to move quietly at first within the highest levels in DC to build relationships and support for the DATA agenda.
From the support we built in the White House, we knew we had to next tackle Congress. Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic leader and member from San Francisco, had always been a champion for AIDS—we found a home in her offices and a willing coach and leader. The Pelosi family are huge U2 fans, but even she needed to be convinced of Bono’s sincerity at first. It didn’t take long. She hosted Bono’s first formal Democratic meeting on Capitol Hill for DATA—it was a lunch in her offices with eight democratic leaders. The agenda was to introduce Bono and the DATA agenda to Democratic leaders and to seek their counsel in moving forward. As minority whip of the Democratic caucus, Pelosi had a beautiful dining room just off the rotunda in the Capitol Building. With plush mahogany furniture and large chandeliers, it was the classic power Washington lunch space. Leader Pelosi is the consummate hostess, true to her Italian roots: every guest is treated with the utmost in gracious, generous hospitality. Bono got the full treatment: china, silver, flowers, and tablecloths. Even as a rock star Bono remains pretty humble and frequently refers to his roots in the “lanes of Dublin” (Irish for slums). He was suitably impressed.
Nancy Pelosi had done her best, and we worked hard on our end to choose the right number of members from all the right parts of the Democratic caucus. We had agreed beforehand on the flow of the conversation at lunch—a flow brilliantly facilitated by Pelosi. It went off without a hitch: Bono was in true rock star advocate form, impressing everyone with his smarts on the issues and his sincerity. The members were honest, direct, clear, insightful, and committed. Representative Dick Gephardt, the Democratic leader of the House, told Bono a heartfelt story of his first trip to Africa to see the devastation of AIDS firsthand. His impressions were still fresh—raw, in fact. “Come here anytime and lobby as hard as you can,” he said to Bono. “We need that. But if you can get any member of Congress to go to Africa and see what poverty and AIDS really look like you’ll never have to lobby them again—they will be in your corner for life.” Bono for his part spoke directly of his personal time and experience in Africa and why poverty had become such a passionate issue for him. He riffed about Ireland being a country (one he loves) but about America being an idea (something quite bigger than just geography). It was at this lunch that I heard him for the first time talk about AIDS and security, telling members that if people in Africa saw “red, white, and blue drugs arriving to save their lives—they’d be fans forever.” It was a wild success.
Building on this first lunch meeting, Bobby had the idea to set up some bipartisan dinner parties. We came up with some very odd groupings that included various senators, former World Bank president Jim Wolfensohn, former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, and, often, Queen Noor of Jordan. The idea was to break down barriers and convince those in attendance that if they could find commonality on something, it would be this. It also helped to make them look like team players and set off a few press flashbulbs on their behalf, and we got support for our cause. Bono understood his role in the equation perfectly, and he was more than willing to do it. He knew that his superstardom could be converted into something of real and lasting value, something that mattered.
It worked. We had an undeniably righteous issue, helping improve the lives of some of the poorest people on earth. We had one of the biggest rock stars of all time not only supporting the cause but also crusading—pleading with legislators to do their part to relieve the debt in order to free up those resources that would help save and improve millions of lives. We had dedicated staffers working long hours. And following the mantra “We get the check!” gave us amazing clarity to go do the job. Other organizational interests or constraints didn’t hamper us.
To give a little bit of context, charities that are labeled as 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organizations are prohibited from using money for political purposes. This includes limits on what they can do and spend on advocacy campaigns for issues and not just in the electoral space—it applies to activities across all aspects of government (legislative and executive branches). Being a 501(c)(4) means you are allowed to do more aggressive issue advocacy, including unlimited lobbying, but donations to a 503(c)(4) are not tax deductible, which makes raising money more difficult. Most mature issue-based organizations have both operating so they can have as many options in the advocacy toolbox as possible.
Since DATA began as a 501(c)(3) in 2002, it required more political muscle. We opened it as a 501(c)(4) in 2003 with personal donations from Bill and Melinda Gates matched by AOL. Our clear intent was to build bolder political and policy work. The flexibility to engage in unlimited lobbying and more aggressive issue advocacy was transformative in this space. These unique capacities allowed us to go big and bold. It created some envy from the major health NGOs operating in Africa, but it was a very clear gift that we used effectively.
We also very purposely built not only bipartisan champions but also constituents for those members that mattered to them back home. That was not easy—Republicans clearly don’t share a constituency with Democrats. For the Republicans the base was evangelical Christians, and on the Democratic side it was young people. Our near orthodox adherence to always have both sides on the same page and to getting equal amounts of time and thanks from both was sometimes maddening, but it was worth it and paid large dividends in the end. We were so committed to establishing Republican champions that Bono and Bobby flew commercial to Sonny Callahan’s district in Alabama to meet with his best friend, the guy who owned the Ford dealership—that is humble lobbying at its best.
And in the middle of it all, Bono was playing his other role: as the front man of one of the biggest bands on earth. He got on a bus and did the Heart of America tour across the American Midwest to demonstrate the need to get Americans engaged. This turned out to be my year as a roadie, as the U2 management had agreed to give us backstage access at concerts as a way to increase our support with key members of Congress and senior staff. The one requirement was that we manage the guests ourselves and be there to guide them through the venue. When we made the agreement that seemed like a reasonable request, but little did I know how tough life on the road with a rock band could be. Every time someone wanted to go to a show, I had to fly to that city to help them and then fly back to DC to do my day job. Although this turned out to be exhausting, it did give me the opportunity to meet a lot of interesting people, as Bono often hosted late-night hospitality drinks with friends.
One night in particular, I had gotten to the venue early to brief Bono on the political guests we would be bringing backstage before the show. Outside his dressing room, there was a handsome stranger sitting there. Wanting to be polite, I introduced myself and told him I could let Bono know he had someone waiting. I walked into Bono’s dressing room and said, “There is a man out there named Tom Brady who says he’s your friend. Do you want to see him?” I was a little embarrassed when it turned out this particular Tom Brady was a famous football player—I had no idea who he was! Bono laughed so loud I kept urging him to stop because I was sure Brady would hear us.
There are lots of other, less embarrassing stories from my time on the road, including when we ordered delivery pizza from the tarmac outside a small private plane. The look on the delivery driver’s face when he realized he was delivering a pizza to Bono on a private jet was priceless. I think Bono’s favorite story is about being in a diner in Iowa. A truck driver approached, more as if looking for trouble than an autograph. “You’re Bono, right? I hear you’re working on AIDS in Africa,” the trucker said. “If you need a driver to get those drugs to people who need them, I’d volunteer to help.” Bono was awestruck, but replied simply by saying there was surely a challenge in getting drugs to people in remote areas of Africa but that the trucker could best help by telling political leaders to help find the money to buy AIDS drugs and get them delivered. “Can you help us out with that?” Bono asked. “You want me to tell my senator to support funding to fight AIDS?” asked the trucker. “Done—that’s a lot easier than driving a truck in Africa.” Everyone laughed. That tour, and the conversations it sparked, proved to Bono that Americans could and would rally if we did the hard work of asking them for their support.
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Our hard work paid off: the United States gave three times as much aid to Africa during the Bush presidency than it had before, reaching a sum of about $4.3 billion. In the lead-up to the G8 Summit in Scotland in July 2005, President Bush pledged that US aid to Africa would double again by 2010, to $8.6 billion per year. About $2 billion would be directed to the landmark President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). What’s more, G8 also agreed “that all of the debts owed by eligible heavily indebted poor countries to IDA, the International Monetary Fund and the African Development Fund should be cancelled.”
It was almost difficult to imagine bigger success. But of course, making a promise is much easier than delivering on it. We had to keep at it, holding leaders accountable for their remarks and pledges and relentlessly pushing: by courting their staffers to earn their trust and by finding ways to keep the issues on their agenda. Part of our efforts included publishing reports on the state of the epidemic and effects of the interventions, something we still do today. As time went on and success swelled, we knew we needed a way to create a more robust organization. Our mission was still to get the check, but as our success for improving budgets and appropriations line items grew and policy initiatives like the Millennium Challenge Corporation and PEPFAR passed, there was a growing restlessness in the traditional NGO community—“coopetition” of sorts raised its head (we’ll get more into coopetition in chapters to come).
One story about the launch of the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC): Bono had agreed to stand with President Bush at the White House as the president announced what would become the MCC initiative just prior to a G7 meeting in Mexico. The outline would be rolled out, but they were not going to commit to any particular money goals at this press event, nor were they willing to do it privately with us. The night before we’d been up late at a suite at the Four Seasons in Georgetown arguing if Bono should go or not. For hours the phone went back and forth between Bobby and Condoleezza Rice, the national security advisor at the time. She kept pressing Bono to come; Bono kept pressing back that he wasn’t comfortable standing up for a plan that didn’t have money committed to it. She pledged that she had tried as hard as she could but couldn’t give us a commitment for dollars. She asked Bono to “trust her and trust her boss.” They hung up. Bono asked, “What can I do? If I say no, I say I don’t trust them. If I say yes, I could get used.” The core team debated and I was squarely in the “don’t do it without money” camp. My counterpart and friend Scott (the Republican) pressed him to “take the deal.” In the end Bono went to the announcement.
Nearly a year later, in 2003, after PEPFAR was passed and the president was sending his budget to Congress, we got wind that they weren’t going to adequately fund the bill—their request for funding would be substantially below what we’d called for and passed in Congress. Bono came to DC, and we scheduled a meeting at the White House in the Oval Office with the president, chief of staff Josh Bolten, and other aides. Bono pressed for a commitment to minimal funding needed to get PEPFAR off the ground. Bush hedged, dodged, and explained that there just wasn’t enough money to get all the way to our goal. Bono was agitated, respectful but displeased. He explained his trust in Bush when he took the photo months earlier and why now he’d have to fight back in Congress if the numbers were too low. I was not in the room (Democrats weren’t allowed, but Scott was). I waited outside the north gate for them to come out. They did—hurrying down the driveway past the press waiting at the stakeout area outside the West Wing entrance. I knew when I saw them that something hadn’t gone well.
They jumped in the car. Bono summarized what happened. We were due to cross Lafayette Park immediately after to meet, talk, and report the meeting’s progress with all our NGO partners at St. John’s parish hall. They were waiting, and we were told the press was there as well. We drove around the White House compound three or four times, debating what to do. Scott was worried. The tone of the meeting was tense, and he was pulled aside by Bolten and warned that if Bono went out against Bush, we’d pay a price. I stuck to my one point—they asked you to trust them, and you did. You took the picture. Now they have betrayed that trust. Your job isn’t to be their friend; it’s to hold them accountable and to win—we must fight back and say so publicly now. I lost that first debate at the Four Seasons, but I won the SUV fight. Bono agreed, and we hurriedly brain-stormed some remarks on a yellow pad in the back of the car. He brilliantly changed the sentence “I just had a rather robust fight with President Bush” to “I just had a row with the President.” Row is the Irish word for fight, but it can be said in a more charming and humorous tone, which is exactly how Bono used it.
Reference to that row set off a series of very angry calls from the White House to all of Bono’s supporters in DC, including members of our team. The heat went up—high! I got calls from most of the senior Democrats, like Nancy Pelosi and Tom Daschle, congratulating Bono for his courage and his commitment to fight. That night was tense for all of us. The next day we went to Capitol Hill to really take the row to where it would matter—Congress. We won the budget battle. Years later, after Bush had left the White House, Josh Bolten, who was then on ONE’s board of directors, invited Bono for dinner at his home in Great Falls, Virginia. When I spoke with Bono the next day, he told me that Bolten told the gathering, “Bono, it was singularly the best thing you ever did to hold our feet to the fire that day. Had you not done it, PEPFAR never would have had the money it needed and none of us would be talking about it as the game changer it is. I didn’t like it then, but I’m damn proud of it now.”
As DATA’s work grew and the politics got complicated, we realized we needed to reorganize. We had created ONE as a coalition in 2004, and so in 2008 we combined DATA and ONE into one organization and kept the name ONE. I helped with organizational development issues a bit more, but my overall role did not change; I was still the lead Democratic strategist.
By 2012, (RED)—the brainchild of Bobby and Bono—would also be merged under the ONE umbrella. (RED) was a hugely innovative idea that also crossed traditional boundaries, in this case between business and humanitarian aid groups, paving the way for the growing ethical consumerism or conscious capitalism movement. The idea was simple but brilliant: companies like Nike, Apple, Coca-Cola, Gap, Hallmark, and many others create a product and give it a (RED) logo, and then donate up to 50 percent of the profit when the product sells. It was also politically necessary, as the Bush administration was pressuring us to bring in private-sector money as part of the overall commitment on global AIDS. All of the donated profits go to the Global Fund, which was created in 2002 to raise and invest funds to support large-scale prevention, treatment, and care programs for AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria. A huge portion of all funding worldwide to treat these diseases comes from the Global Fund, due in no small part to the money from (RED). American Express even tested a “red card” in a limited market, mostly in the UK; it didn’t work out, but the card still sits on my desk as a reminder of the power of new ideas. DATA, and even Bono, could not get everyone engaged. (RED) products, and their companies with large marketing budgets, were capable of putting us in every mall in America, and this helped.
Today ONE is a very large and highly visible brand in international advocacy. It has offices in London, Berlin, Nairobi, Tokyo, and Ottawa, and a staff of more than two hundred. Bono remains the leader and a dedicated advocate. Bobby is on the board. Jamie is a senior advisor but in reality remains Bono’s go-to guy on all things public interest. At the end of 2015 we helped pass the Electrify Africa Act—one of the only pieces of bipartisan legislation to emerge in the 113th Congress. Nearly 70 percent of sub-Saharan Africa’s population does not have reliable electricity. That means no reliable lights, lifesaving hospital equipment, or food refrigeration. Imagine the implications for sanitation, health care, education…the list goes on. That bill will help provide electricity access to 50 million people for the first time.
To be with Bono in the same room for some of the most interesting and colorful moments in the history of ONE has been a privilege. Bono’s meeting with Jesse Helms—the ultraconservative homophobe who had been my archrival on domestic AIDS issues—was a watershed moment and perhaps one of the most difficult and interesting in my career. Helms’s co-sponsorship of PEPFAR cleared the way for nearly all the Christian conservatives in the Senate to join the effort, but being in the same room as him was awkward to say the least.
As an aside, watching John Kerry give away the base ideas for what became PEPFAR to President Bush was perhaps the most generous act of political statesmanship I’ve ever witnessed. After we had created a relationship with the Bush White House and saw the opportunity to make AIDS in Africa the embodiment of his “compassionate conservative” message, we needed to find the legislative vehicle to roll it out. Nancy Stetson, John Kerry’s longtime Senate Foreign Relations Committee staffer, drafted an early version of PEPFAR, and John Kerry introduced it, but by 2002 Republicans had the majority and we knew it would have to become a Republican bill to get the White House on board and the Senate in a position to move it. Bono personally led the effort. With very graceful facilitation, Tom Daschle, the Senate minority leader, worked with John Kerry to give the base bill to Bill Frist. Passing the torch to Frist, the new Republican leader (and a doctor), allowed the Bush Administration to embrace PEPFAR (though they amended the bill in some significant ways—adding abstinence provisions, for example). To this day I don’t think Nancy Stetson and John Kerry get enough credit for their early work and their selfless political decisions.
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Back at ground level, working with ONE opened many doors for me careerwise. Bobby Shriver is one of my biggest fans, and I return the esteem. He promotes our work in many sectors, and my relationship with him opened up a wonderful door to collaborate with his brother Mark Shriver at Save the Children. Getting involved with ONE helped shape the Sheridan Group—credible celebrity management brought us some attention, but the utilization of those assets actually created the real change. We frequently counsel our clients to be careful not to see celebrity engagement as a moment but rather an asset to the movement.
The true definitions of bipartisanship and nonpartisanship were crystalized through my work with ONE. We got stuck with ONE on the idea of being bipartisan—thereby allowing the Republicans more often than not to essentially veto our ideas or actions just by simply not showing up. From that I learned to not so easily give up the capacity to run our own campaign by allowing any party to simply not participate. Instead, I now strive to be nonpartisan, which means you choose what you are going to ask for, and then you get support from whoever is willing, regardless of their political party. This concept would become critical as my career progressed and I tackled more decisive issues.
The ONE story matters because it is perhaps the best example of credible celebrity engagement I’ve ever witnessed. I believe it is the model for any rock star, celebrity, or cause that wants more from the relationship than fund-raising and one-day society column stories. There’s nothing wrong with either of those, but they are not advocacy work and they don’t bring about transformative social change. If you want to do advocacy, you must have a sincere commitment to the cause for the long term and the humility to learn and fail in the rough-and-tumble world of politics. The truth is, Bono is unique as a celebrity advocate. Though we have engaged with other stars for other issues, the experience has not been replicable, no matter how eloquent or attractive these stars may be.
The story of Bono and ONE is also a story about clear vision and goals. As Bono said in an interview with Larry King in December 2002, “Two and a half million Africans are going to die next year for the stupidest of reasons: because it’s difficult to get the AIDS drugs to them. Well, it’s not difficult to get fizzy drinks to the furthest…reaches of Africa. We can get cold, fizzy drinks. Surely we can get the drugs.” He knew how to make a powerful argument—and how to sell, sell, sell.
Despite the enormous success of ONE over the years, there are challenges ahead and more work to be done. Many things conspired to bring ONE to its successes, but the times have changed, and success going forward cannot be replicated using the same strategies and tactics. We need to be able to define our political relevance to each new US president, and that remains the single biggest challenge for ONE moving forward. To continue to make a difference ONE will have to remind itself of its early disruptive roots and replicate them anew in a world still burdened with extreme poverty and AIDS. ONE’s work won’t be over until we solve these two things and truly “make poverty history.” We have come a long way, but there is still a lot of work ahead.
Tom Sheridan is what many would call a mensch and what the Irish call a sound feller. There’s no higher praise. Here’s why.
When I was an even younger campaigner than I am now, I turned up in Washington, DC, with big ideas, a few well-connected friends, and a total high off a huge campaigning win—we had just helped secure billions in debt relief for the world’s poorest countries to celebrate the year 2000. This win had been secured within DC by great leadership from characters like Bobby Shriver, Bono, and Tom Hart as well as congressional champions on both sides of the aisle and some folks in the White House.
But, being campaigners, this win wasn’t enough. Throughout the 1980s and ’90s, while these countries’ cold war debts had been accumulating interest, the HIV/AIDS crisis was raging rampant, especially across the content of Africa. All the progress that could come from debt cancellation stood to be destroyed by the AIDS crisis, and worse was to come if the pandemic wasn’t stopped. We explored how we might take some of our momentum on debt and turn it into action to end the AIDS crisis. Getting serious cash was going to take real political capital in Congress, as well as presidential leadership. That’s when Bobby’s network (and especially that of his mom, Eunice) helped point us in the Sheridan direction. We had heard of Tom’s expertise in marshaling the domestic AIDS lobby for the Ryan White CARE Act, and knew we needed that kind of deft drive to build bipartisan support. And we needed it fast. Back then 5,000 people died from HIV and 6,500 caught it every day, mainly in Africa. ARV drugs existed—those modern miracles—but they were way too expensive for average people, let alone African citizens.
And so the campaign began. Tom’s hand was at the tiller both in guiding key Democrats toward the issue and in partnering with Scott Hatch to help get key Republicans involved, by being sensitive to the needs of moderate and some less moderate Republicans whose support was vital to win key votes. The Kerry-Frist Bill blossomed into new life as the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, via strong support from the legendary senator Jesse Helms as well as Hillary Clinton, Pat Leahy, and the uncompromising Rick Santorum. Thanks to the efforts of lesser-known heroes and heroines on both sides, 15 million people are on ARVs, and 1 million fewer people are dying every year from AIDS because of the global aid response led by the USA and powered by bipartisanship that now seems elusive, led by people like Tom.
Along with Mort Halperin, Tom became a personal mentor of mine and a great friend, too, despite him being fond of repeating the saying “If you want a friend in Washington, DC, get a dog.” It’s true that I found DC to be a less-than-welcoming place at times, between the stress of campaigning and the isolating fact of losing friends for associating with President Bush. There are certainly some souls in DC who need to get out of the Beltway a bit more. In Tom I had more than a friend in DC—I had a mensch and a sound feller, indeed.
Assuming you’re not going to be hanging out with any megastars soon, what sorts of lessons can Bono teach the rest of us working in the world of advocacy or social justice? Here are some simple lessons you can use whether your goal is to raise funds for the local food bank or gin up enough support to run for office. I like to call this “How to Choose Your Superstar—or Become One Yourself.”
Some believe that the simple act of hiring a lobbyist or an in-house policy director is the first and last step in a process—some outsider with special expertise who can come in and fix things. This is incorrect. Organizations must actually think about mission change and decide on goals and a direction before looking for an expert or headliner to help institute large-scale changes or launching a new campaign.
Bobby Shriver and Bono helmed DATA and now the global group ONE, but they couldn’t get anything done without all of the legislators, advocates, policy wonks, and development experts who work with and for them. Similarly, most organizations and nonprofits that are successful in policy and advocacy engage the entirety of the organization’s assets in this work. These hardworking folks are your roadies, the people who show up every day and get stuff done. They study the cases, iron out the details, earn and schedule the meetings, and make real change possible. Without their expert work, the voice of those headliner rock stars would never be amplified or broadcast; they might know the songs, but they don’t know how to work the sound equipment to make their voice heard by the millions.
Policy and advocacy are a relationship-based effort. Much of my work with Bono was done in the back of a car prepping him for meetings with people who would become crucial partners. Your capacity to earn the trust and respect of your elected officials will not come overnight. As nonprofit advocates, we don’t have the privilege of money and campaign donations that our corporate counterparts do—but, in my opinion, we don’t need them. Your strength is in your work and the impact you are having on the communities you serve. This unique political power must be developed and nurtured over time. Simple actions like regularly showing up at town hall meetings, asking for district-based meetings with your members of Congress, and offering them a tour of your program and a chance to meet your clients (who are also their constituents) are simple ways to begin meaningful and productive relationships with policy makers, and they are all within the boundaries of the law.
Policy: Our most successful policy win was and remains PEPFAR. It was already a policy idea in formation (with John Kerry and his staff), but it became PEPFAR after some additional policy work and political compromises were forged. It really stands as a testament that great policy work is often the meeting of extraordinary substance and unparalleled political courage.
Politics: The key here was finding the opportunity for Bush to equate being a “compassionate conservative” with supporting a major policy on global AIDS. When presidents require something political and advocates can match that with bold substance and transformative policy, great things can happen. But advocates have a political role to play, too, and if Bono hadn’t kept Bush’s feet to the fire on funding, PEPFAR would have been a worthless paper promise and Bush wouldn’t have had his most popular legacy item. This moment also saw incredible bipartisan partnership and selfless acts of courage. It’s been nearly fifteen years, and I haven’t really seen anything like it since.
Press: Bono didn’t need any help getting press or attention, but when and how he used this power of celebrity was careful and disciplined. His work and messages were always carefully chosen to advance real policy work and address critical political moments. I think his Heart of America bus tour may be my favorite “press” moment. He truly went to the heartland of America and asked them for support. This is how you use the press to bring the public along.