Guarding Against Complacency in the Face of Existential Threats

The nonprofit sector and foundations dodged several bullets in recent months. The threatened revocation of nonprofit status for entire categories of organizations, rumored in April, has not come to pass. Legislative proposals — to make it easier to yank the nonprofit status of organizations without any opportunity for due process or to increase the excise tax on investment earnings for foundations — failed to become law. Threatened investigations into foundations for their DEI practices have not materialized, as far as I know, or at least not yet.

In normal times it would be understandable for foundations and their leaders to exhale. I am certainly grateful to the many organizations and individuals who worked to help beat back these threats. But these times remain anything but normal and, unfortunately, we continue to see an unrelenting series of actions by this administration that represent a real and present danger to our democracy. It’s not a moment for complacency — nor should we focus exclusively on sector defense, as important as it is, or foundation self-defense.

Here’s an incomplete list of administration actions that should alarm every foundation and donor, across the ideological spectrum:

• The dismantling of international aid, the dismantling of vital health-related research, and the gutting of key aspects of our domestic social safety net — which will increase suffering of the most vulnerable
• Federal funding cuts of duly allocated funds that are threatening (or in some cases have already damaged) the ability of nonprofits to do their crucial work helping people and communities
• The detention and imprisonment of people legally in this country merely for their statements and perceived political views
• Censorship and retaliatory investigations that seek to put political opponents behind bars
• An off-cycle redistricting in Texas at the behest of a president who wants to retain power even if it means disenfranchising voters
• An assault on objective data, including the dismantling of vital data systems and the firing of those who dare to report out bad news or inconvenient facts;
• The deployment of U.S. military forces in American cities under false pretenses (see above) about crime levels. 

These are existential threats. It’s not easy to know what to do about them, and the right response will vary funder to funder, context to context.

But sitting on our hands won’t cut it, as Candice Jones of Public Welfare Foundation made clear on this CEP webinar last month. “The future is watching,” Jones said. “History is being made right now. … We’re in a really important and critical moment, and if people are saving it up for another day, I think that’s sort of ill informed.”

I am inspired by the actions I have seen many funders take — and also worried that some continue to err too far on the side of institutional caution. Some still seem concerned about being seen as “partisan.” But to call the administration’s most egregious actions out, and seek to respond to them, is not to engage in partisanship, because what is under threat are essential tenets of a free and democratic society. Without them, there is no civil society.

Some seem to be persisting with the “stay under the radar” approach I have argued against on this blog, including in this piece in March. I hear from some (demoralized) foundation staff that risk aversion has led, in some instances, to a shifting away from funding certain efforts (such as in climate and racial equity) and certain nonprofits. Words that pose no actual legal risk and that foundations had no issue with last year have, in some instances, been scrubbed from websites this year, needlessly ceding ground on important values. This NCRP report, based on an analysis of foundation websites, brings crucial data to the table, supporting with evidence what was previously just an anecdotal sense that this is, indeed, happening at a subset of foundations.

I understand the worries about being targeted and have heard many reference what’s happened to colleges and universities. But private foundations are not like colleges or universities.

Most foundations don’t receive federal funding. They don’t have alumni, students, or faculty whose backlash leaders need to fear. They don’t need to obsess about institutional rankings or compete with each other for students. Private foundations don’t even have to worry about bringing in revenue. They are free to do what they believe to be right and just — what is necessary to preserve our democracy.

I am not saying it’s simple. Foundation boards often include people who have their own affiliations or concerns that might influence their appetite for risk: perhaps their company contracts with the federal government; or perhaps they are affiliated with a nonprofit that gets federal funding. So there are still constituents foundation CEO need to work with and reassure.

But “it is a fallacy to believe that silence prevents risk” anyway, as Rich Besser of Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, who has offered inspiring leadership in this time, put it recently. “Philanthropies must not obey in advance, but rather speak out — loudly, boldly, and often — in defense of our grantees, partners, and vision of a healthier, more equitable nation.”

Diane Yentel of National Council of Nonprofits — who testified in Congress in May about the importance of nonprofits with poise, power, persuasiveness, and grace (in the face of insulting and absurd behavior from some members of Congress) — makes a similar point. “Our silence won’t protect us,” she has said. “If there’s protection to be had for our sector, we’ll find it through visibility and solidarity.”

This is a moment to double down, not back down. “What feels painfully clear to me and to [my] board is that we have a narrow window of opportunity to be proactive in our ability to defend constitutional rights before they no longer exist,” Carmen Rojas of the Marguerite Casey Foundation wrote in Inside Philanthropy last month. “Long-held and cherished civil rights wins and civil society norms are no longer guaranteed. They’re battlegrounds.” This isn’t just talk; her foundation has increased its giving from $25 million in a typical year to $130 million this year.

There are plenty of great, inspiring, and important examples of foundations and their leaders — including the ones I have mentioned and many others — taking bold action, including in this recent guest post on this blog from a group of foundation leaders. There is also this commitment, from the Trust Based Philanthropy project in conjunction with the National Center for Family Philanthropy and Grantmakers for Effective Organizations, calling, among other things, for more multiyear unrestricted support and streamlining of processes. There is, also, of course, the Council on Foundations sign-on statement defending the freedom to give.

This is all positive. I hope also that each foundation leader will ask themselves what else, specifically, they can bring to this fight for our country and our democracy. Besser can use his platform at RWJF and media savvy to make a case on national TV. Not everyone can do that, but perhaps they can find other venues to persuade and to give cover and support to key nonprofits. Rojas has a board at Marguerite Casey Foundation that was willing to support a more than fivefold increase in grantmaking. Others may be considerably more constrained in how much in additional grantmaking they can convince their boards to support, but perhaps there are still ways to provide key grantees with additional resources.

I also hear from a number of foundation leaders that there is a need to go beyond defense, and to imagine a future that can motivate and inspire a broad coalition. This, too, is vital work, as hard as it can feel in the current moment.

The goals, contexts, and the particular assets (broadly defined) as well as the constraints in which leaders are operating will differ. Not everyone can or should play the same role. What I hope is shared, though, is what underlies and precedes bold action: a recognition of the urgency of the moment, and a willingness to think about risk in a way that goes beyond the parochial protections of jobs or institutions or even the effort to completely minimize risks to our personal safety.

I don’t mean to downplay the real and understandable fear. But those of us fortunate enough to have some power and privilege, some institutional perch — however small it may be — that gives us even a little influence, must not be afraid to use it, even in the face of legal counsel urging us, as legal counsel so often does, to mitigate risk above all else.

“An excessive aversion to risk is a risk in and of itself,” Harvard President Alan Garber has said — wise words I hope he takes to heart as he considers that institution’s path in the coming days and weeks.

Our democracy is at risk, but narrow worries about our particular individual and institutional circumstances could create a sort of tragedy of the commons in which too few step up to defend what needs to be defended.

“If there is no struggle there is no progress,” said Frederick Douglass in 1857. “Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation are men who want crops without plowing up the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters.”

The struggle is here and it is now.

Phil Buchanan is president of the Center for Effective Philanthropy, author of the 2019 book Giving Done Right: Effective Philanthropy and Making Every Dollar Count, and co-host of the Giving Done Right podcast (season five launches on September 4).

Disclosure: RWJF is a major funder of CEP’s and a client. Public Welfare Foundation has provided grant support to CEP. Our funders are listed here.