OFA executive director Jon Carson said the group saw 109,582 “founding members” donate an average of $44, in an email to supporters. Carson did not disclose the median donation.

The slight figure does not compare well to the campaign fundraising totals of last year, despite OFA’s ability to take in unlimited donations as a tax-exempt 501(c)(4).

But, as Politico notes, OFA’s first quarter does not even stack up well next to the Democratic National Committee’s first post-election quarter in 2009, when the DNC raised $14 million.

OFA has run into a number of public bumps since its formation in January, including tensions between the group and its now fundraising counterpart DNC.

The group has also drawn intense scrutiny for a donor scheme that would entreat high-level donors to certain levels of White House access.

And then there’s the low attendance at the group’s first major event. Fewer than 100 people showed up to the first session of OFA’s two-day “Founders Summit” last month. The president spoke to a group of OFA donors on the first night of the summit; that dinner cost a reported $50,000 to attend.

OFA will release the names of donors (but not their employers) who gave more than $250 this afternoon in donation ranges. Because of its legal status, the group is not required to disclose any donor information.

“Friend,” he wrote, “I want to make one thing absolutely clear: We’re up against a whole lot more than just opposition in Congress.”

Jim—that’s “Mr. Messina” to you—ran President Barack Obama’s reelection campaign. Now he’s chairman of Organizing for Action, a nonprofit formed under section 501(c)4 of the tax code.

Organizing for Action is able to raise unlimited money, does not have to disclose where that money comes from, and engages in “issue advocacy” (“Tell Congressman Smith to grab guns”), but not “express advocacy” (“Vote against Congressman Smith because he likes freedom”).

“Organizing for Action is going to shift the balance of power in Washington back to real people,” Jim told me in his email. “People like you have shown over and over again that no amount of spending can stop millions of Americans calling for change.”

Jim’s right: The billion dollars President Obama and affiliated groups spent in 2012 did not stop millions of Americans calling for change.

But now Jim wants me to “donate $5 or more” to his new gig because “We have our first fundraising deadline this weekend.”

And I can’t do it. It’s not worth the investment. The price of access to Obama is too damn high.

Five dollars won’t even buy me lunch with Jim. A donation of $50,000 or more was the price of entry to Organizing for Action’s “Founders Summit” this month at the St. Regis hotel in Washington, D.C., where Messina mingled with guests and the president spoke at dinner. To join the “task force on policy,” I’d be expected to raise “at least $250,000 to finance advocacy work on specific issues.”

And I’d have to raise $500,000 to earn “the privilege of attending quarterly meetings with the president, along with other meetings at the White House,” according to the New York Times. A spot on the board of directors of Organizing for Action requires a pledge to raise “$1 million for two consecutive years.”

Accumulating the capital to mingle with the likes of Jim Messina and President Obama is an arduous undertaking if you are not already a tech billionaire or Hollywood mogul or green energy venture capitalist or Vogue magazine editor or labor boss. (Organizing for Action says it won’t take money from lobbyists, corporations, or political action committees, but it’s happy to take money from unions.)

And it doesn’t stop with Organizing for Action. Obama and the progressive left have created a vast network of interlocking structures that mediate between financial interests and the executive branch. Shaping policy to benefit one’s company—or even to protect it from government interference—requires massive donations to all of them.

Take my friend Jim for example. In addition to Organizing for Action, he is setting up his own consultancy, which is, Bloomberg reports, “courting corporate clients.” He’s also been “giving paid speeches, domestically and internationally.”

Jim’s firm doesn’t have to disclose any of those clients. (Bloomberg says the Democratic National Committee is among them.) The influence brokers of the world will be sure to donate to Organizing for Action, hire Jim’s firm for consultation and media strategy, and book him for a lunch speech in Vegas.

The legal and ethical ground of Organizing for Action becomes muddier every day. Politico’s Ken Vogel wonders whether Jim Messina’s pro bono work for the group might count as an “in-kind contribution” to Organizing for Action, thus violating the group’s self-imposed pledge against corporate donations.

That pledge is more or less worthless anyway. Consider a CEO who contributes on an individual basis to Organizing for Action while his company joins Business Forward, the Democratic trade organization that, for a price, organizes meetings between its corporate members and White House officials, allowing said corporations to avoid lobbying rules.

Then he hires Messina’s firm. Then he works with the Common Purpose Project and Enroll America to avoid getting hit by the arc of history as it bends toward justice. Then he donates to Priorities USA Action, the Obama affiliated Super Political Action Committee that can raise unlimited funds, and the DNC, the party congressional committees, and individual candidates.

Whatever money is left will go to the constituent parts of the Democracy Initiative, the secret consortium of progressive groups advocating for loose voting requirements, filibuster reform, and suppressing the political speech of wealthy conservatives. Then the CEO will feel morally superior as he waits for the government to make it rain for his firm.

The more you examine this constellation of pressure groups, the more you suspect that its true purpose is to serve as a full-employment plan for Democratic hacks. These former campaign hands make a living from businesses scurrying to hedge against political and economic risk. Messina is just one among the tens of thousands of political professionals trying to dredge gold from the river of money flowing through Washington.

Which may account for Organizing for Action’s hyperactivity. Not a day goes by without this grassroots organization inserting itself into another policy dispute. First it was the debate over gun control. Then Organizing for Action said it would become involved in the immigration debate.

After that, the group banged the drum for legislation to reduce carbon emissions. And after that, Organizing for Action suddenly discovered a passionate interest in an obscure campaign finance battle in New York state that has nothing to do with the president’s agenda.

For such a young group to move in all of these directions at once is typically a sign of strategic indirection—especially when you consider that Organizing for Action’s influence in the gun debate so far has been nil.

From a fundraising perspective, though, casting a wide net makes sense. Involving itself in as many issues as possible creates donor possibilities for Organizing for Action. It enlarges the universe of factions that want to placate the progressive juggernaut before it strikes them down.

And of course, it opens doors to consulting contracts for my friend Jim.

Click to enlarge

The tax-exempt 501(c)(4) has drawn scrutiny from liberal watchdog groups and the New York Times editorial board for, among other things, a reported scheme that would grant donors who give or raise $500,000 quarterly meetings with the president.

OFA operates in a complex area of campaign finance, so the Washington Free Beacon has put together this guide on the group:

(Obama photo credit: Associated Press)

Reporters had access to the opening session, which featured speeches by founders Jim Messina and David Plouffe, but not the ensuing private sessions. The Washington Post noted the low attendance Wednesday morning:

Fewer than 100 people attended Wednesday’s opening session of a two-day summit at the St. Regis, an upscale hotel just two blocks from the White House. Many of the Democratic Party’s biggest benefactors did not attend.

Attendees included a few donors, but were mostly volunteers and former White House and campaign staffers. They heard opening speeches by Messina and other founders, including longtime Obama adviser David Plouffe, and then held private strategy sessions. Obama is scheduled to address the group at a dinner Wednesday, with more strategy sessions planned for Thursday.

President Obama will speak Wednesday night at a dinner for the event, which cost $50,000 to attend.

Although many major Democratic donors are sitting out the event, a number of ringers will still be there. Among those expected to attend are Andy Spahn (the political consultant for DreamWorks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg) and Texas businessman Henry Munoz, according to Bloomberg. Munoz is one of the lead fundraisers behind the Futuro Fund, which raised $32 million for Obama’s reelection.

“President Obama will do what he did during the campaign, which is communicate to his grassroots supporters and ask for their help,” he said. “There will be events where our supporters are briefed about what the president is doing … We’ll be as transparent as possible.”

Pressed repeatedly by co-hosts Charlie Rose and Norah O’Donnell, Messina said he was “excited” about OFA’s agenda and “it’s the right thing to do.” O’Donnell tried to get in one more question at the end, but Rose cut her off and moved to the next segment.

Full interview:

The organization, which already said it would decline donations from federal lobbyists and foreign donors, will now also refuse money from corporations. However, the group will still accept money from labor unions, according to spokeswoman Katie Hogan.

OFA has come under heavy fire for creating the appearance of pay-for-access arrangements between Obama and donors who hand over at least $500,000 to the advocacy organization:

News that the group was courting Obama campaign bundlers to raise $500,000 as part of a finance committee that could get quarterly meetings with the president only escalated the criticism. The conservative super PAC American Crossroads released a video earlier this week mocking the group as “Organizing for Acce$$.”

The controversy threatened to overtake Organizing for Action just as it was ramping up its efforts to back Obama up on gun control and the federal budget fight.

The Free Beacon reported today that OFA’s headquarters are located in the National Education Association building. As Politico’s Kenneth P. Vogel noted on Twitter, it is unclear if “Obama 501c4 [is] paying rent to @NEAToday or accepting in-kind contrib. of union-dues-funded office space.”

Todd was describing the quarterly meetings that will be enjoyed by OFA’s $500,000 donors, the New York Times reported over the weekend:

But those contributions will also translate into access, according to donors courted by the president’s aides. Next month, Organizing for Action will hold a “founders summit” at a hotel near the White House, where donors paying $50,000 each will mingle with Mr. Obama’s former campaign manager, Jim Messina, and Mr. Carson, who previously led the White House Office of Public Engagement.

Giving or raising $500,000 or more puts donors on a national advisory board for Mr. Obama’s group and the privilege of attending quarterly meetings with the president, along with other meetings at the White House. Moreover, the new cash demands on Mr. Obama’s top donors and bundlers come as many of them are angling for appointments to administration jobs or ambassadorships.

“This just looks bad–it looks like the White House is selling access,” Todd said Monday. “It’s the definition of selling access. If you believe money has a strangle hold over the entire political system this is ceding the moral high ground.”

The perk was first reported by the Los Angeles Times earlier in February after a meeting between OFA leadership and top Los Angeles and Bay Area fundraisers for Obama’s reelection campaign.

OFA is a tax-exempt 501(c)(4) and therefore not required to disclose the identities of its donors, nor the amounts they give. In addition to major campaign donors, the organization’s leadership has been courting corporate donors.

Such an arrangement under President George W. Bush, they say, would have alarmed them.

President Barack Obama’s dark-money group Organizing for Action (OFA) is staffed by former Obama campaign officials and is aimed at building grassroots support for the administration’s policy agenda. The group is not required to disclose its donors and recently began soliciting corporate funding.

Obama is scheduled to speak to supporters on a post-State of the Union conference call arranged by the group after tonight’s speech. The call will take place during grassroots fundraising “parties” that OFA has organized across the country.

“I did not see President Bush throwing his weight behind these organizations,” said Richard Painter, associate counsel and chief ethics lawyer for President Bush from 2005 to 2007. “I’m not going to say [Bush] didn’t touch [outside groups], but I did not see the same kind of push from the president, from the White House, for these kinds of things. If I had, I would have made a lot of noise about it.”

Scott Coffina, associate counsel under Bush from 2007 to 2009, said he was not aware of comparable relationships with outside groups during his time in the White House.

“The big concern [with OFA] is what a fine line they’re drawing because this is the entire political apparatus that’s running this,” Coffina said. “I don’t know if I would have shot it down out of hand, but I would have probably advised that the leadership of it be a little less heavy on the political operatives and a little more heavy on the policy people.”

As a 501(c)(4) group, OFA has restrictions on its partisan political activity. However, Coffina questioned whether the former political operatives running OFA—including former White House aide Jon Carson and Obama’s 2012 campaign manager Jim Messina—would be tempted to coordinate with partisan Democratic operations, particularly during the 2014 midterm elections.

“The way this organization has been run is like a political operation, and now it has to turn on a dime and completely turn its back on that,” Coffina said. “It’s gotta be policed, and who’s going to police it? Is the White House going to police it? Is it going to police itself?”

If administration officials participate in OFA events that involve fundraising, it could give the appearance of quid pro quo, said Painter.

Even if these officials did not explicitly trade favors—as is prohibited by anti-bribery statutes—their appearance at OFA events could give the impression that donors to the organization can purchase special treatment before their agencies.

“Some of this fundraising could start to border something that looks very much like soliciting a bribe, when a government official is going out there and asking people to contribute to a private organization,” Painter said.

Also worrying was the fact that internal watchdogs do not appear to be raising alarms, Painter said.

“I do know that our message [in the Bush White House] was stay away from it. And most of our people, if not all of them, were listening,” Painter said. “I’m not so sure we’re getting the pushback from [Obama’s] White House counsel’s office and the Office of Government Ethics. … I think these reports show me that this seems awfully loose and that the White House either doesn’t have control over it or, worse yet, the White House is encouraging it.”

On a conference call with supporters on Sunday, OFA officials announced that Obama would participate in a conference call with volunteers during post-State of the Union fundraising parties. Officials also said the group would send out its first fundraising email after the president’s speech.

“Really get into [the party guests’] heads that we are going to start grassroots fundraising, and that it’s not scary and that it’s going to be a new thing we’re doing,” OFA official Meagan Gardner said. “Start to think okay ‘what do you think would be an amount that you could raise? Or an amount that you and your team could do together?’”

Neither the White House nor Organizing for Action returned requests for comment.

Jim Messina, the former manager of the president’s reelection campaign, is currently leading the formation of Organizing for Action, the tax-exempt 501(c)4 that is not required to disclose its donors or the amounts they give.

“I think Citizens United needs to be overturned, either legislatively or by the states,” Messina told MSNBC’s Chuck Todd Tuesday evening at a Chicago Institute of Politics event. “We were able to have a grassroots, internet fundraising that no one had ever seen before, and we could combat it like that. And that’s the grassroots way to do it, but long-term, Barack Obama is a once-in-a-generation politician and, you know, every person running in 2016 for president, my advice for them is go get a Super PAC.”

OFA is in the process of wooing corporate donors, despite the public line that the fundraising effort will be grassroots-focused.