48-page presentation shows big-money group’s plans through 2028 — and reliance on VC billionaire Michael Moritz
by JOE RIVANO BARROS SEPTEMBER 17, 2024 (MissionLocal.org)
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Proposition D, experts say, would be the most far-reaching change to San Francisco government in two decades. The proposition, on November’s ballot, would cap the number of San Francisco commissions at 65 while bolstering the power of the mayor and police chief.
It would eliminate the bodies responsible for oversight of libraries and public health, for instance, while curtailing the power of the police commission to keep officers in check and prevent abuses.
The measure, put forward by the public pressure group TogetherSF, has raised about $7.8 million as of Sept. 16, a fifth of the $37 million going into the election so far. It is, by far, the most expensive contest in the November race.
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For the billionaire-backed group TogetherSF, it’s also just the start.
An internal strategy document obtained by the influence-tracking group the Phoenix Project and shared with Mission Local shows TogetherSF’s strategic plans for the next four years, including its heavy reliance on a single donor: The venture capitalist Michael Moritz, who is also the owner and backer of the San Francisco Standard. The presentation reveals the full depth of Moritz’ funding for the first time.
In a statement, Kanishka Cheng, the chief executive officer TogetherSF, stated that the document was authentic. She said the presentation shows the strength of the group and its key accomplishments since TogetherSF was founded in 2020.
Cheng wrote that the community created by TogetherSF and TogetherSF Action “genuinely believes in the power of grassroots organizing to create meaningful change in local politics.”
The document, a 48-page presentation titled “A San Francisco That Works for Everyone,” seemingly a pitch to potential donors, includes plans to run two more ballot measures in future elections. These would reform the city’s nonprofit contracting and introduce at-large supervisorial elections.
In the presentation, TogetherSF also promises to continue participating in future supervisorial and mayoral races, and to “grow and sustain [a] movement of community dissatisfaction.” This rancor would be directed at a government that is “failing at delivering basic services to its residents effectively, if at all.”
Already, in 2024, TogetherSF has endorsed Mark Farrell for mayor and is backing a slate of challengers hoping to oust progressive incumbents or beat progressive candidates for supervisor.
To that end, it is endorsing Marjan Philhour in District 1, who is running against the progressive incumbent Supervisor Connie Chan; Danny Sauter in District 3, hoping to replace termed-out Board President Aaron Peskin; Bilal Mahmood in District 5, running against the city’s lone democratic socialist representative, Supervisor Dean Preston; Matt Boschetto in District 7, running against Supervisor Myrna Melgar, who has managed to skirt the line between progressives and moderates in San Francisco; Trevor Chandler in District 9, running to replace progressive Supervisor Hillary Ronen; and Michael Lai in District 11, a newcomer to the district running in a crowded field to replace Supervisor Ahsha Safaí.
The presentation, dated July 2023, also offers the first real glimpse into the vast finances of a group that is almost entirely backed by donors who do not have to disclose their identities when giving.
TogetherSF is technically structured as two separate nonprofits, a 501(c)(3) named TogetherSF that can take hidden, tax-deductible donations but cannot engage in candidate races, and a 501(c)(4) named TogetherSF Action, which can engage in such races but must disclose some donors (who do not receive a tax benefit). The two groups share leadership and work in tandem.
These two nonprofits, collectively referred to as TogetherSF from here on out, had received $6 million since 2020 from Moritz and his Crankstart Foundation, according to the 2023 document. Moritz, a billionaire who made his wealth in tech, and Crankstart had pledged a further $11 million, the document states, for a total of $17 million. Since then, Moritz’ contributions may have grown.
At the time of the presentation, the group sought to “raise an additional $11M” to match Moritz’ pledged gift, for a total of $22.4 million. That, the document states, would “give us runway through the 2026 election.”
Two more ballot measures and 300,000 members by 2028
The TogetherSF presentation is structured as a sales pitch. Dated in July of last year, the document recaps TogetherSF’s victories to that point, touting house parties held, voter guides distributed, and members added.
The presentation points to three elections in which “our community engagement drove wins” — the 2022 elections of District 4 Supervisor Joel Engardio and District 6 Supervisor Matt Dorsey, and the election later that year of District Attorney Brooke Jenkins following the recall of the progressive DA Chesa Boudin.
The presentation then details a four-stage plan for “growing an engaged (and enraged) community” and “driving community to vote for real change.” Between 2023 and 2026, the group will “roll out [its] political arm” and “grow and sustain [a] movement of community dissatisfaction.”
Polls show San Franciscans have grown increasingly dissatisfied in the years since the pandemic, and TogetherSF’s agenda is backed by a significant amount of money aimed at both fomenting and capitalizing on voters’ anger, promising change.
Through 2028, the slideshow proposes, TogetherSF will “launch and win 2-3 ballot measure campaigns.” It lists the following issues:
- “countless commissions,” which it is already addressing through Prop. D
- “government gridlock,” for which it will “consider how at-large board seats could impact the Board’s ability to get more done”
- “contracting chaos,” for which the prescription is creating “a performance-based contracting system”
The group also says it will “win supervisorial races” and “support mayoral race 2024 and 2028.” Its membership drives — which are heavily focused on social activities like trash clean-ups, house parties, and trivia nights — are meant to rapidly grow its “community members” (seemingly, those subscribed to their newsletter) from 65,000 in 2023 to 300,000 in 2028.
Finally, the group seeks to grow its “community leaders” program of people who will focus on “running for office,” among other things. Those leaders would become “megaphones for change.”
Cheng’s statement to Mission Local pointed to some of those changes: “We have successfully achieved many of our key objectives, including getting Prop D commission reform on the ballot. Civic engagement, political activism, and driving meaningful structural change in San Francisco are still goals of our organizations. These slides illustrate how much our community has accomplished in the past year and how tens of thousands of engaged citizens can drive meaningful change through community activism.”
TogetherSF, in its four years on the scene, became well-known for a series of pilloried “That’s Fentalife!” billboards it put up in 2023 to spotlight the city’s overdose crisis — mockingly, critics said. It puts out voter guides backing candidates and measures, but has not disclosed any direct spending on candidates.
Generally, however, TogetherSF focuses on removing progressives from power and undoing their policies.
In the March 5 election, TogetherSF backed tough-on-crime judge candidates, a rollback of police oversight and expansion of police powers, and drug-screening welfare recipients. The group backed District Attorney Brooke Jenkins in 2022 and castigated the outgoing Chesa Boudin. It won in all of its efforts except its judicial slate.
In November, it is opposing both rental subsidies for low-income tenants and a tax on companies like Lyft and Waymo to fund transit, while supporting measures to allow police officers to earn pensions and salaries simultaneously and firefighters to retire with full benefits at age 55 instead of 58. TogetherSF is pushing an “anyone but Peskin” strategy in the mayor’s race, ranking Farrell No. 1.
Moritz biggest funder in new network of pressure groups
The TogetherSF presentation reveals that Moritz, who also launched the San Francisco Standard in 2021 as a for-profit news site, is the largest contributor to a new crop of ideologically aligned pressure groups that have spent millions on San Francisco politics since 2020, largely to oust progressives and change the direction of the city.
Moritz’s giving “would be more than half of all money raised to date, which has been a little over $40 million,” said Jeremy Mack, the executive director of the Phoenix Project, referring to the collection of big-money groups which the nonprofit has tracked in several whitepapers. “It’s not only saying, ‘Hey we’ve raised a bunch to date,’ but, ‘This is just the beginning. We have a lot more money coming.’”
Grassroots organizations can struggle for years to build a base, learn the politics, and become effective lobbyists for their issues. TogetherSF shortcuts that with a boatload of cash.
“It’s global wealth in what is a small city,” said Lincoln Mitchell, a lecturer at Columbia University who frequently writes about San Francisco politics. TogetherSF’s MO is to bulldoze through change by spending reams of money, Mitchell said, enacting its vision by outspending opponents “10 or 20 to one.”
But TogetherSF is not alone. The new big-money network is heavily interconnected by common donors, like-minded staff, and jointly funded candidates and causes. The groups, like GrowSF and Neighbors for a Better San Francisco, are varied but more alike than not, and share similar goals.
The heavy involvement of Moritz, who serves as TogetherSF’s board chair, is no surprise: He has been TogetherSF’s chief patron since its founding.
Moritz, who was a technology reporter before making his fortune as an investor, is heavily involved in San Francisco civic life: He has spent more than $336 million on various city nonprofits and initiatives, according to a 2023 report from Bloomberg. Moritz has put at least $4.4 million into San Francisco political campaigns since 2003, including just shy of $3 million into November’s Prop. D.
Moritz created the San Francisco Standard with $10 million in 2021, and appears to be its only source of support. The Standard’s publisher, Griffin Gaffney, co-founded TogetherSF with Cheng, TogetherSF’s CEO, before stepping away.
“He’s clearly looking at: ‘How do I get at the root challenges of governing San Francisco?’” said Jim Ross, a San Francisco campaign strategist, of Moritz.
Strong executive, ‘values-aligned’ legislators
Rich DeLeon, professor emeritus of political science at San Francisco State University and author of the 1992 book “Left Coast City,” said that while the presence of moneyed interests in San Francisco politics is nothing new, the focus on structural change is. When Silicon Valley first became meaningfully involved in San Francisco politics in the early 2010s, for instance, under the direction of venture capitalist Ron Conway, the focus was on backing the right horse: Ed Lee, at the time, who received gobs of money from tech interests.
“At that point, there weren’t any major structural reforms; they were interested in changing players,” DeLeon said. “Elect the mayor and that’s all you need to do. And they certainly did that.”
While candidate electioneering is part of TogetherSF’s efforts, its priority is transformation at the roots.
The group’s presentation paints a vision of a mayor who would enjoy a municipal government free from ideological strife, where legislators and bureaucrats move to the beat of one drum.
In one slide, TogetherSF details the ideal relationship between the Board of Supervisors and the mayor: Supervisors would maintain their check on the executive, but “would be ultimately aligned in values” with the mayor. To “make San Francisco work,” the document states, “we need real structural change … giving the Mayor the power to lead.”
“When you start saying the problem is that the Board of Supervisors doesn’t support the mayor — no, that’s the point,” said Mitchell of Columbia. “That’s not a bug, that’s a feature … The legislature always does oversight. If you weaken their ability to do oversight, you’ve created a problem.”
The allegation that the Board of Supervisors’ independence from the mayor is gumming up municipal functions — rather than being a check on the mayor’s power — has been a common refrain of the group: In February 2023, Moritz penned an op-ed in the New York Times claiming “mayors have been stripped of much authority while remaining convenient heat shields for the board.”
In August 2023, TogetherSF commissioned a 76-page report from the Rose Institute at Claremont McKenna College suggesting that “the structure of government has contributed to the struggle to address the City’s problems” and noting that “Charter amendments have reduced the Mayor’s capacity to govern.”
But past mayoral aides have said that the mayor has broad latitude over the city’s functions, and seldom allows commissions to block policy. Regardless, most commissions are already beholden to the mayor; the mayor appoints the majority of commissioners, while the Board of Supervisors appoints a minority.
The board can reject mayoral commission nominees with a majority vote, but that is similar to the role of other legislatures, like Congress vis à vis the president’s appointees.
The Board of Supervisors is also responsible for a de minimis portion of the city’s budget, and has little control over which programs live or die. In the original 2023-2025 budget, for instance, all 11 supervisors cumulatively had say over 0.2 percent of San Francisco’s $14.6 billion budget.
Mayor Breed, meanwhile, directly controlled 16 percent — 80 times more than the board.
For professor emeritus DeLeon of San Francisco State, the aggregation of executive power is nothing new, but the deep money backing it is.
“It’s the kind of argument that goes way, way back: Strong executive leadership, to run the city like a business — more efficiently, more streamlined — to justify centralizing and strengthening control,” DeLeon said.
To that end, he said, TogetherSF is “flooding the zone with these major structural reforms.”
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JOE RIVANO BARROSSENIOR EDITOR
joe.rivanobarros@missionlocal.com
Joe was born in Sweden, where half of his family received asylum after fleeing Pinochet, and spent his early childhood in Chile; he moved to Oakland when he was eight. He attended Stanford University for political science and worked at Mission Local as a reporter after graduating. He then spent time in advocacy as a partner for the strategic communications firm The Worker Agency. He rejoined Mission Local as an editor in 2023.More by Joe Rivano Barros
