Hamilton Flourishing leader claims former Sen. Corker undermined financial support, foundation denies

The upcoming of the Chattanooga conservative group Hamilton Flourishing is in question with its president, Doug Daugherty, alleging its funding was lower off at the instigation of former U.S. Sen. Bob Corker.

Daugherty designed the demand in a modern, urgent fundraising plea, charging that Corker, a Republican, referred to as “our greatest donor” to get the funding slash. He did not establish the donor in dilemma but the Maclellan Basis has been the group’s best profile funder.

“The RINOs (Republicans in name only) are attacking us, particularly in excess of the Weston Wamp unlawful election,” Daughtery wrote in his missive, alluding to Republican Weston Wamp’s victory in Hamilton County’s May 3 mayoral major election, which was challenged unsuccessfully at the point out GOP govt committee.

The allegation that Corker sought to slash off funding is baseless, claimed David Denmark, executive director of the Maclellan Basis.

“Bob Corker has not spoken with Chris Maclellan nor anyone else at the basis about withholding funding for Hamilton Flourishing,” Denmark explained in an email. “It would be a moot point, given that we have not funded Hamilton Flourishing in nearly 4 several years.”

Denmark stated in an earlier statement that “the Maclellans and the basis have no expertise or impression about the allegations made by Hamilton Flourishing relating to the the latest major election for our county’s mayor. We will be content to operate alongside whomever is ultimately elected to provide our local community in that important potential.”

Wamp will facial area Democrat Matt Adams in an Aug. 4 normal election.

Todd Womack, Corker’s former main of workers, explained by cell phone the former senator did not find to slash off foundation funding.

Two previous board associates concerned in the development of Hamilton Flourishing informed the Chattanooga Times Absolutely free Press by telephone that the intent was constantly that the team, recognized as a conservative imagine tank and announced publicly in 2019, would grow to be self-ample following a few years with no much more funding from the Maclellans.

Previous board users Tom Decosimo and Tina Benkiser also claimed it was their recollection that Hugh O. Maclellan, the foundation’s previous president, experienced provided funding for at the very least some of that time.

Initiatives to reach Hugh O. Maclellan on Saturday by telephone to inquire whether or not Corker or many others contacted him in any exertion to reduce off funding had been unsuccessful. The Situations No cost Push referred to as a few phone figures listing Maclellan’s identify, and all responded with a recording stating they are not taking calls.

Corker, in the meantime, did not answer on Saturday to a Instances No cost Push textual content about no matter if he experienced elevated the challenge with Hugh O. Maclellan.

Position UNCLEAR

Daugherty has labored for a long time in assistance of social and religious conservative problems. The Hamilton Flourishing team concentrated on education plan, abortion and other challenges.

For two months jogging, the Instances Free Push sought to establish whether the group received plenty of funding to continue to be lively over and above the July 15 shutdown day outlined in the fundraising plea.

The 7 days just before very last, Daugherty responded briefly to many text messages, initially creating, “Tremendous, tremendous busy. Talk to you up coming week if I can. Purchasing a property in Charleston.”

Daughterty did not react when requested no matter whether that was in Charleston, Tennessee, or Charleston, South Carolina.

This earlier 7 days, Daugherty wrote in reaction to a adhere to-up textual content to focus on the predicament that “I just are unable to til the time is proper.”

In a later text, unedited, he wrote, “Hamilton. Flourishing until finally their is a comprehensive succession system,” just before later on incorporating “I am on a sabbatical. I am going to be 70 in Oct.”

Hamilton Flourishing to start with been given its IRS nonprofit approval in 2018. In a 2019 submitting, it noted $96,100 in funding for what appeared to be a partial year’s action. It detailed $34,896 in salaries, other compensation and worker gains as nicely as $8,827 in expert service fees and other payments manufactured to independent contractors and other fees, leaving a $41,992 equilibrium.

In its 2020 disclosure, reflecting 2019 activity, the team described acquiring $305,185 that calendar year. Of that total, Daugherty obtained $125,000 as base payment. It also documented $87,500 in assistance method expenses and $37,500 in administration and normal charges. A portion for fundraising expenditures was blank.

Education ROOTS

The group’s generation was publicly announced in April 2019 in the course of a meeting with the Situations No cost Push. There, board associates Ken Meyer, a previous Republican legislator Decosimo, running principal of Decosimo Corporate Finance and Benkiser, a community attorney and former head of the Republican Party of Texas, outlined what they saw as the need for a conservative consider tank in the community.

Meyer at the time pointed to the group arranging get the job done of UnifiEd — a nearby, progressive nonprofit team developed in 2013 with the target of reforming Hamilton County Schools. UnifiEd has been supported fiscally by the nearby Benwood Foundation.

UnifiEd shares its name with a political motion committee that had been active in college board and County Fee races. Decosimo, Meyer and Benkiser ended up trying to get to give a equilibrium to UnifiEd on the tips entrance.

In accordance to Decosimo, at least some of the group’s funding came from Hugh O. Maclellan, whose family started Chattanooga-primarily based Provident Daily life and Accident Insurance Co., which later merged with Unum. The family members has various other foundations as well.

“I feel at first the Maclellan Basis was likely to fund” Hamilton Flourishing, Decosimo claimed in a telephone interview final week. “But I believe for whatsoever explanations they resolved that Hugh O. would do it independently.”

Decosimo, who ran unsuccessfully for college board in 2020, claimed his recollection was Maclellan’s economical guidance was to be for three years, the idea getting that would enable Daugherty time to build a sustainable fundraising strategy to go on Hamilton Flourishing’s operations.

“I considered Doug did a genuinely good work,” Decosimo explained. “You know, just kind of remaining a neutral conservative voice, advertising literacy in our educational institutions and furnishing insight into the voters as to who the candidates ended up.”

Decosimo reported Daugherty has been in the system of making an attempt to broaden out his assistance.

“And which is in which he was when I bought off the board. He was conscious of Hugh’s determination and he was trying to broaden his assist so he just wouldn’t be overly reliant.

“I have no plan what happened in this article,” Decosimo claimed. “Like I mentioned, I got off the board, I’m just also darned hectic.”

Meyer, executive director of federal affairs with K12 Inc., a for-earnings agency that offers on the web college curriculum, stated he had constrained involvement in the early phases of Hamilton Flourishing and still left following about a year presented his business and other responsibilities.

Those include serving on the board of the Beacon Middle, a Nashville-based mostly absolutely free-marketplace believe tank. Meyer claimed he experienced instructed Daugherty might test to work out an arrangement with the Beacon Middle.

“I just didn’t have adequate time to spend consideration to what was going on regionally that I would be of any true reward,” mentioned Meyer, whose operate frequently takes him to Washington, D.C. “Since I was associated in Beacon Middle, I noticed some price in the notion, but that idea just never ever actually developed.”

Benkiser reported she was on the board for about a year. She claimed she had been fascinated in “educating individuals to be included in civic matters, educating people today on the challenges so that they could make up their very own minds and just truly get back again to knowledgable civic engagement.”

She stated her understanding was the Maclellan Basis was to deliver original funding for the initial 3 decades.

“And the strategy for any nonprofit team is to establish its have donor foundation on any kind of basis or seed revenue,” she explained. “I know it was the Maclellan Foundation, and then I consider that Hugh Maclellan stepped in, of course, and took up in which the foundation still left off. But I consider that 3 yrs is probably coming about now, coming to its natural conclusion. So I assume it fulfills the commitments it built.”

She mentioned she has no strategy if Hamilton Flourishing has created a donor base, getting read through Daugherty’s mentioning obtaining a 60,000-reader foundation for his email e-newsletter.

“But I will not know how that interprets into donations or donors,” she claimed.

Wamp on May possibly 3 won the Republican nomination for Hamilton County mayor in a a few-person field. He received 318 much more votes than his nearest competitor, Sabrena Smedley, Hamilton County Fee chairwoman. Businessman Matt Hullander arrived in third.

A group of Republicans charged that Democrats had “illegally” crossed about, though the point out has no system for political bash voter registration and lets voters to pick one particular party’s ballot or yet another on the day of a primary election.

There was additional “crossover” voting than usual this 12 months, as Democrats on May perhaps 3 did not have a competitive key for mayor.

Smedley challenged the election outcomes before the Tennessee Republican Point out Government Committee, but customers noted there was no way to know which candidates received the votes from crossover Democrats, specified that ballots are saved key. Wamp and his allies noted he received quite a few of the most conservative precincts in the county.

Both equally Meyer and Benkiser serve on the Tennessee GOP’s Condition Executive Committee, which determined Smedley’s obstacle. Meyer voted versus the challenge, stating present-day state law will allow crossover voting. Benkiser voted to overturn Wamp’s victory.

Amid its actions this yr, Hamilton Flourishing sponsored a Republican mayoral principal discussion.

Decosimo, who supported Hullander in the GOP mayoral main, expressed puzzlement above a Hamilton Flourishing poll by Knoxville-based Spry Tactics on the race, commissioned by Hamilton Flourishing. Launched in April, it showed Wamp primary in the mayoral primary.

“I was not joyful about the poll he ran demonstrating Weston profitable,” Decosimo claimed. “I’m not certain the place that came from.”

“A City FOR GOD”

Daugherty has extensive been included in conservative issues and from time to time on the political entrance, serving as marketing campaign supervisor in 1986 for fellow social and spiritual conservative Jim Golden in Golden’s unsuccessful obstacle to then-U.S. Rep. Marilyn Lloyd, a Chattanooga Democrat.

He later on became a political and fundraising guide, doing work with Interior-Metropolis Ministries. He states in his Hamilton Flourishing biography that he turned govt director of the Chattanooga Coalition Against Pornography and “ran all the pornography suppliers out of city.”

Some time later, he became govt director of the Chattanooga Useful resource Center, one more conservative social and religiously oriented group for nearly two a long time. Its mission was earning Chattanooga “a City for God.”

As head of Hamilton Flourishing, he writes an e mail e-newsletter identified as Civilis. He lately hailed the U.S. Supreme Court’s choice overturning Roe v. Wade, indicating that “with out dilemma the blood of innocents, and tens of millions of people’s prayers and millions of people’s challenging get the job done is the most important miracle matter in any era alive!”

In his attraction for economical guidance, Daugherty said, “It can be all-out war from the RINOs, the Trump haters, specifically voter integrity …. It is a war. We will acquire if you help.”

He signed the e-mail, “Doug Daugherty, desperately working tough to endure monetarily.”

Get in touch with Andy Sher at [email protected] or 615-255-0550. Comply with him on Twitter @AndySher1.