Doug Daugherty has made it official: Hamilton Flourishing, the conservative social and political think tank he headed for the past four years, is no more.
"Hamilton Flourishing is shutting down," Daugherty said in a statement this week. "I had hoped to find a successor to run the organization, but honestly, I just ran out of time and resources."
Daugherty said "it has been a wonderful four years. We have seen great progress on many fronts, but there is still much to be done."
He also said he believes others "are in place to continue the work" Hamilton Flourishing engaged in, "but the time has come for me to shift gears. I am not retiring in the traditional sense, but I feel strongly that I should pursue other ventures. I will be 70 years young in October of this year.
"So, regrettably, there will be no more communications from Hamilton Flourishing," Daugherty added.
Daugherty said in a Chattanooga Times Free Press phone interview Wednesday that maintaining a nonprofit group -- he's been involved in a number of them over the years -- "is just a lot to do. And I really don't want to do that again. It's just a whole lot of work. It takes up a lot of time.
"I hope to keep my hand in somehow. I'm not sure what that will look like."
He noted he published his first book of poetry and has a '"lot of different projects," including doing more writing.
Among its 2022 activities, Hamilton Flourishing sponsored a county mayoral debate. And the group also sponsored a mayoral poll on the GOP field of candidates in advance of the May primary. It was the only independent political survey released publicly.
In July, Daugherty publicly announced the group was in serious financial straits and was facing closure. He charged in a Facebook post that former U.S. Sen Bob Corker, a Chattanooga Republican, had successfully choked off funding from its largest donor.
The Maclellan Foundation, whose former head, Hugh O. Maclellan, is said to have provided Hamilton Flourishing's funding, denied any Corker involvement, as did Corker.
In his final public pleas for contributions in July, Daugherty said the group was under attack from RINOs, or Republicans in name only. He attacked Weston Wamp, whose May GOP primary victory for Hamilton County mayor was challenged unsuccessfully by rivals who believed Wamp received votes from Democrats.
The challenge was rejected by state party officials, and Wamp went on to win the mayorship and has been sworn in.
"The RINOs are attacking us, especially over the Weston Wamp illegal election. This illegal election has already been pushed by RINOs to the National Republican Committee," Daugherty wrote of Wamp's victory in the county Republican Party's mayoral primary in May. "Bob Corker called our biggest donor this week. We have not been able to reach our large donors mostly because of COVID.
"We are going under July 15, if you do not help now," Daugherty added.
Gifts returned
Daugherty told the Times Free Press that Hamilton Flourishing is now legally winding down its affairs but can't officially close until until Dec. 31.
"The state will not accept year-end data till then," he said. "That being said, we have accounting costs and insurance to pay through the end of the year."
In response to questions about finances, Daugherty said "all monthly gifts have been stopped. All recent gifts have been returned. The small remaining balance exists to cover accounting and insurance."
The group was founded in 2018 by local conservatives Ken Meyer, a former Republican legislator; Tom Decosimo, managing principal of Decosimo Corporate Finance; and Tina Benkiser, a local attorney and former head of the Republican Party of Texas.
A major part of its initial purpose was to counter UnifiEd, a local, progressive nonprofit group created to push Hamilton County public school reforms, the three told the Chattanooga Times Free Press in 2019 when publicly unveiling the group.
Meyer said in a July 2022 interview the goal was to establish a conservative think tank similar to The Heritage Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank and advocacy group.
But Meyer, who along with Decosimo and Benkiser, initially served as Hamilton Flourishing's three-person board, said it was always intended for the group to become self-sufficient after three years with no more Maclellan funding.
Decosimo and Benkiser also said it was their recollection that Hugh O. Maclellan had provided funding for at least some of that time if not during all of it.
IRS filings reviewed by the Times Free Press showed Hamilton Flourishing reporting receiving a total of $401,285 in 2018 and 2020. No reports were filed beyond that. The 2020 filing stated Daugherty was paid $125,000.
The next step
Meyer, a member of the Tennessee Republican Party's State Executive Committee, said Wednesday in a phone interview that Hamilton Flourishing was a "very good experiment with some very positive outcomes.
"There were lessons to be learned. Local activism is very important, and I think we'll be seeing more of that," Meyer added. "And it's time to go to the next step."
Asked whether that might involve another Chattanooga-based think tank, Meyer said, "I have no idea whether anybody's thinking that.
"But maybe it will encourage others to think about local think tanks in a positive light, people who are completely vested and invested in a local community who are not part of the political process directly but can provide research and thought behind critical issues that impact the local community. And that's truly what a think tank is designed to do.
"And maybe the next iteration of a possible model could be a little more robust and take the lessons that were learned and improve upon them," Meyer added.
Daugherty told the Times Free Press that Hamilton Flourishing was a "small shop," comparatively speaking.
"It takes about five years to get a nonprofit going under normal conditions," Daugherty said. "Under COVID, that really shut down fundraising you have to do, for at least two years. You couldn't do events, you couldn't call on people at an office; they weren't there or just didn't work. There's all kinds of legal compliance issues. You've got all kinds of records you have to keep. If you've got employees, you've got HR, unemployment insurance."
It's like a business, he said.
"And it's just a lot to do," he said. "And I really don't want to do that again."
Daugherty has been involved in conservative issues and causes for decades. He served as campaign manager in 1986 for fellow social and religious conservative Jim Golden in Golden's unsuccessful challenge to then-U.S. Rep. Marilyn Lloyd, a Chattanooga Democrat.
He later became a political and fundraising consultant, working with Inner-City Ministries. He states in his Hamilton Flourishing biography that he became executive director of the Chattanooga Coalition Against Pornography and "ran all the pornography stores out of town."
He later became executive director of the Chattanooga Resource Center, another conservative social and religiously oriented group for nearly two decades. Its mission was making Chattanooga "a city for God."
In his announcement this week, Daugherty noted he recently published a book of poetry -- "Long Path, Through the Valley Verdant and Boulder Strewn" -- that is available on Amazon.
"Just search for Doug Daugherty," he wrote. "All profits will be given to cutting edge nonprofits. More is coming. I intend to spend a good deal of time writing a wide assortment of material in multiple genres.
"I am also beginning a consulting service, especially for nonprofits," he said. "I am a man of prayer and would appreciate it if you would lift this new stage in my life up."
Contact Andy Sher at asher@timesfreepress.com or 615-255-0550. Follow him on Twitter @AndySher1.