by Mel Green

Anchorage Baptist Temple donated 61% of the $73,605 raised so far by the anti-Proposition 5 group “Protect Your Rights” chaired by Jim Minnery of the Alaska Family Council, according to media reports.

Two stories today in the Anchorage mainstream media — one from KTUU Channel 2 News and one from Alaska Dispatch — detail contributions since early March to Yes on 5 — One Anchorage and to the anti-Prop 5 group “Protect Your Rights — Vote No on 5″ chaired by Jim Minnery of Alaska Family Council.

The information provided was sufficient to put together the below pie chart of contributions to Minnery’s No on 5 group through March 24, as filed in the group’s latest report to the Alaska Public Offices Commission (APOC).

According to the KTUU and Alaska Dispatch stories, the Anchorage Baptist Temple-backed group “Protect Your Freedoms” chaired by Anchorage Baptist Temple associate pastor Glenn Clary received a single donation of $80,000 from the Anchorage Baptist Temple. “Protect Your Freedoms” then wrote a check for $45,000 of those funds to Minnery’s “Protect Your Rights” group, but retaining $35,000.  The $45,000 from Anchorage Baptist Temple by way of “Protect Your Freedoms” represents nearly two-thirds (61%) of funding for Minnery’s No on 5 group.

Another sizable donation of $15,000, representing 21% of “Protect Your Rights” funding, came from Josh Pepperd of Davis Constructors and Engineers; $3,025 (4% of contributions) from Chapel by the Sea; and $10,580 (14% of contributors) from “more than 50 individual contributions — most of them $100 or less from Anchorage residents,” according to the Alaska Dispatch.

By comparison, see Bent Alaska’s chart from our March 10 story “Minnery misrepresents One Anchorage fundraising.” The chart we included in that post showed contributions to One Anchorage (Yes on 5) through March 8, 2012.

During the period through March 8:

• Alaska contributions included $179,593 from 1,017 donors in the Municipality of Anchorage — Anchorage proper, as well as Eagle River, Chugiak, Girdwood, and other communities within the Municipality; and $7,051 from 87 Alaska donors from 21 Alaska communities outside the Municipality. In total, $186,644 was contributed by 1,104 Alaska donors from the Municipality of Anchorage and 21 other Alaska communities — 75.6% of all contributions, and 78.7% of all donors.
•  From outside Alaska, Planned Parenthood of the Great Northwest contributed $25,000; 10.1% of all donations); and Pride Foundation and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force each contributed $10,000 (4.1% of total donations apiece), and another 296 donors contributed $15,212. A total of $60,212 was contributed from outside the state by 299 donors (including the big three) from 39 states and the District of Columbia during that period.

Since March 8, One Anchorage’s has taken two additional large donations —

• $25,000 from Tim Gill of Denver, Colorado. Gill is the head of the Gill Foundation, and LGBT equality foundation, but the donation was a personal one from him.
• $10,000 from the ACLU of Alaska.

But as reported by KTUU, the majority of One Anchorage’s donations since earlier in the month have come from

dozens of donations from people giving between $20 and $500.  It also has received a handful of donations between $1,000 and $5,000

— bringing the total funds raised by One Anchorage as reported by KTUU to $328,797.  According to the Alaska Dispatch,

Yes on 5 — One Anchorage, reported early Wednesday that they had received another $6,000, raising their total to $334,797.  The Human Rights Campaign in Washington, D.C., kicked in $5,000 of that. The group reported in a disclosure filed Tuesday that it had raised $96,000 from more than 200 donations in the last reporting period. Most were from Anchorage residents giving $300 or less.

I don’t have the spreadsheets now to do an updated version of the One Anchorage pie chart. But it’s already clear from the number and amounts of contributions to One Anchorage from Municipality of Anchorage residents that Proposition 5 enjoys much wider support from Anchorage residents than the very narrow demographic that opposes equal protection under the law.

Thank you to all the many people and businesses who have donated their hard-earned dollars toward the cause of equality in Anchorage.

References

• 10 Mar 2012. “Minnery misrepresents One Anchorage fundraising” by Melissa S. Green (Bent Alaska).
• 28 Mar 2012. “New Groups Spend Big on Proposition 5 Campaigns: ‘Protect Your Freedoms’ and Denver LGBT foundation head provide new money” by Jason Lamb (KTUU Channel 2 News).
• 28 Mar 2012. “Protect Your Rights group raises $69,000 as vote nears” by Alex DeMarban (Alaska Dispatch).