A Message for Philanthropy in the 2025 Giving Season

This is an edited version of comments Phil Buchanan made to the Maryland Philanthropy Network on September 17, 2025. These comments draw on some previously published material, including Phil’s blog posts on the CEP Blog and his 2019 book, Giving Done Right, and have also since been updated with CEP’s latest data on how nonprofits and philanthropy are responding to the current context.

I don’t need to tell you that 2025 has been an extremely challenging year. Let me offer up an incomplete list of actions of the current presidential administration that should alarm every foundation and donor, across the ideological spectrum and regardless of personal party affiliation.

• 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 is already increasing the suffering of the most vulnerable
• Federal funding cuts of duly congressionally 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 and censorship and retaliatory investigations that seek to put political opponents behind bars
• 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 about crime levels

And, of course, we see horrific, totally unjustifiable and deplorable political violence — from the assassination of Minnesota legislator Melissa Hortman and her husband in June to the assassination of Charlie Kirk in Utah in September. We’ve also seen attempts by the current administration to use that violence — the assassination of Kirk in particular — as a pretext to go after nonprofits and foundations.

This is where we are; America in 2025.

Nonprofits Are Reeling

Nonprofits, big and little, national and local, they’re all affected. And, of course, most nonprofits are small and local — they are the community organizations which President George H.W. Bush spoke of powerfully in his 1988 Republican National Committee speech as “a brilliant diversity spread like stars, like a thousand points of light in a broad and peaceful sky.” 

Right now, the current federal government seems intent on dimming those lights. On February 6, a White House memo referenced “NGOs, many of which are engaged in actions that actively undermine the security, prosperity, and safety of the American people.” Around that same time, we surveyed our representative panel of U.S. nonprofits. At that time, we saw that fully 70 percent of respondents saw the political climate as negative for their work. Overwhelmingly, leaders worried about funding — but 40 percent also cited safety and security (of staff and those served) as a concern.

Since then, things have become even much more challenging. In our latest data, collected in August and September and released just a few weeks ago, 68 percent report that the current context has had a negative impact on their ability to carry out their work. We also saw that the vast majority (more than 80 percent) of nonprofits are experiencing, or anticipate experiencing, an increase in demand for their services, while many (61 percent) note their very ability to continue to operate is at risk. 

Let me offer up an anecdote of just one nonprofit I happen to know well; this is hardly the most dramatic example of the effects of the current climate, but it does illustrate the utter illogic of what is happening.

In my 2019 book “Giving Done Right,” I profiled Gregg Croteau, CEO of UTEC, an organization in Lowell, Massachusetts — about 25 minutes from where I live — focused on recruiting gang-involved young people out of gangs and into their programs, which include social enterprises in which the young people work: a mattress recycling facility; a woodworking shop; a cafe.

The program works, reducing crime significantly and helping young people turn their lives around. It has been praised and held up by both Republican and Democrat governors of Massachusetts (and, yes, we have Republican governors in Massachusetts sometimes). Gregg would be the first to tell you there are many other efforts like this in communities all across the country.

Any given day finds Gregg and UTEC’s “street workers” sitting at a bedside in a hospital after a shooting, visiting a gang member in prison, or attending a funeral. These are the places where UTEC staff find they can best begin the process of recruiting a young person to leave street life behind.

UTEC’s revenue comes from individual, corporate, and foundation donations as well as government support. In April, Gregg received an email terminating — immediately — $2 million in federal funding from the Department of Justice, one of hundreds of such notices sent to nonprofits that day. I interviewed Gregg in July on a webinar we hosted and he put it this way: “The financial impact is huge,” he said, given that their total budget is $15 million, but so too is the “disregard” for the work.

I would add to Gregg’s point this: the disregard for the reality that this work, not the presence of the national guard or the deployment of the military in our streets, is key to driving down crime.

This is just one example of organizations being targeted because they’re perceived as somehow “woke” or “left” when what they really are is just effective.

How Have Funders Responded?

The response from major donors and foundations in the U.S. to this new context has thus far been widely varied.

On the positive side, we have seen foundations take action. Many have increased payout, getting more grant money out the door to key organizations. The Marguerite Casey Foundation in Seattle, for example, increased its giving more than fivefold, from $25 million in a typical year to $130 million this year.

That foundation’s CEO, Carmen Rojas, wrote in May: “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.” 

Some have argued that “philanthropy can’t possibly fill all the gaps” left by government. That’s undeniably true, but also not a reason to do nothing. Funders I have talked to that have decided to step up their grantmaking levels are doing so thoughtfully, with an eye toward which organizations and programs are most crucial to shore up.

Funders have taken other steps, too. They have created new programs; provided extra support to grantees, including legal and security resources; spoken out against actions seen to be undemocratic; collaborated in new ways; and gone to their pandemic playbooks — unrestricting grants and streamlining application and reporting processes.

This is good.

But I have also seen foundations — and leaders and boards — that seem cowed. Many have sought to “lie low” or “stay under the radar.” I have seen foundations literally shutter programs in areas like climate and racial justice, laying off staff. I have seen foundations, acting sometimes on the advice of legal counsel or in some cases communications officers who are seeking to mitigate risk above all else, require nonprofits to change language on their websites that is perfectly legal, just to try to avoid “becoming a target.” I have seen funders roll back the language on their own sites. I have seen funders end their commitments to diversity, equity, and inclusion even though nothing they were doing was in any way illegal — in some cases letting go staff they had recruited to great fanfare just a few years ago.

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.

Look, 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.

But, as Rich Besser of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has said, “It is a fallacy to believe that silence prevents risk … 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.”

The goals, contexts, and the particular assets (broadly defined) as well as the constraints under 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.

“An excessive aversion to risk is a risk in and of itself,” Harvard President Alan Garber has said.

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.

What Do Nonprofits Need Now?

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

I don’t want to oversimplify, but the most powerful things you can do right now are: 1) to listen carefully to the nonprofits you support — the organizations you have chosen, after all, to be your agents of change and find out: What do they need? How can you help them? … and then try to provide it to them whether on your own or working collaboratively with others; and 2) to speak up where you can — because your voice matters.

Sometimes these two things are one and the same, actually.

I was in a Zoom meeting this summer during which a nonprofit leader shared that her organization, which works with immigrants and refugees, had been targeted by federal government officials in what was an obvious case of politically-motivated harassment. She said that a couple of her funders had “really stepped up” but that most had not; and she shared how disappointing and demoralizing it was, given that it was quite public what was happening to them.

I didn’t know her, and there were many people on the Zoom, but I raised my hand and asked a question because I wanted to understand what “stepping up” looked like? “What is it that you wanted your funders to do,” I asked?

“Just call us and say they were sorry this was happening to us and that they supported us,” she responded. “Just ask what they could do even though there wasn’t anything specific we would have asked for.”

That was all she was looking for — solidarity and support from her funders. And yet she felt that some were hesitant to affiliate with her and her organization at that time, despite having funded it; that they were running scared.

This is not the time to look away, or to put your head down. This is not the time to hide.

Nonprofits are being targeted by governments for their beliefs; civil society is under threat in India, Turkey, Hungary, and, right here and right now, in the United States — something I honestly never thought I’d see. This moment requires great courage and boldness, especially from those of us with the privilege of resources and an institutional perch that allows us to have outsized influence.

It requires taking some risk.

“If there is no struggle there is no progress,” said Frederick Douglass said 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.”

And taking the risks that need to be taken, doing what needs to be done, engaging in the struggle — well it all requires something else.

Courage. And so I wish you each that courage. 

My view is that this country’s nonprofit sector, supported by effective philanthropy, is an essential part of what is good in our society — from the art that brightens our lives and challenges us, to the vaccinations that prevent disease, to the human rights that have been secured, philanthropy and nonprofits are often behind our greatest gains. Take pride in that. Don’t forget it. And keep protecting those gains as best we can amid a ferocious effort to turn back the clock. And keep pushing for more.

Your work is noble. And it is needed.

Thank you for what you do each day. And what I know you will do tomorrow.

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.