A pledge to increase the flow of money to grantees in response to the Trump administration’s defunding of nonprofits that promote progressive policies has collected 79 signers, 10 of whom declined to identify themselves publicly.
The “Meet the Moment” effort, spearheaded by the Trust-Based Philanthropy Project and joined by Grantmakers for Effective Organizations and the National Center for Family Philanthropy, got a slower start than expected, according to Shaady Salehi co-executive director of the trust-based advocacy group. Thus far, it has failed to match a similar call issued by grant makers in the early weeks of the Covid-19 pandemic.
In mid-February, as nonprofits started reporting that their federal support was being withheld, with many cutting jobs or warning of layoffs, Salehi did not see a coordinated response from philanthropy. The reticence to take a public stand in the early months of the administration may reflect fear of retaliation and White House investigations, Salehi suggested. By coming together, foundations could find safety in numbers, she said.
“We wanted to create an opportunity to coalesce a collective voice, recognizing that we’re in a political climate where it’s easier for organizations to sign on to something if they see many other organizations signing on,” she said.
The response is in marked contrast to the more than 800 grant makers that signed a similar pledge in 2020 led by the Ford Foundation and the Council on Foundations. While outgoing Ford president Darren Walker has by no means been absent, appearing at events including the New Orleans Book Festival and the Skoll World Forum in the past few weeks, Walker has not publicly summoned a philanthropywide response from his grant-making peers in the Trump administration’s early days.
Walker declined an interview request through a spokesperson.
“We would have expected some kind of message from Ford,” said Salehi, who praised the public stand taken by foundation leaders including MacArthur’s John Palfrey, who in late February increased the foundation’s grant making from 5 percent of its assets to 6 percent, putting tens of millions of dollars into the hands of nonprofits over the next two years.
“That gives many in the sector a sense of hope that we can stand tall amid everything that’s going on and that there are leaders willing to put themselves on the line,” said Salehi of MacArthur’s increased payout.
On Tuesday, MacArthur and 20 other grant makers and philanthropy groups, including the Council on Foundations, United Philanthropy Forum, the Democracy Fund, and the McKnight, Skillman, and Surdna foundations, put out a statement that they would stand together in the wake of “government attacks” on their ability to carry out their mission. The number of signers was growing Tuesday.
“We don’t all share the same beliefs or priorities. Neither do our donors or the communities we serve,” the statement reads. “But as charitable giving institutions, we are united behind our First Amendment right to give as an expression of our own distinct values.”
Responses and Adjustments
MacArthur is not the only large foundation that has increased spending from its assets to nonprofits. The Freedom Together Foundation, a grant maker committed to multiracial democracy, formerly known as the JPB Foundation, in February announced its payout would double to 10 percent this year, and it started directing more grants to nonprofits in the LGBTQ movement. And in the past two weeks, other grant makers, including the Hewlett and Skoll foundations, have joined, responding to what many perceive as a crisis in the nonprofit sector. Hewlett said it would make an additional $50 million in grants this year and provide more multiyear support. Skoll plans to increase its grants by 30 percent this year.
A big difference between the philanthropic response to Trump and the response to Covid is that during the pandemic, foundations anticipated a big financial outlay from the federal government and were assured that they would have public sector partners, said Kathleen Enright, president of the Council on Foundations.
Foundations made a lot of operational changes and put more money into the mix, expecting that a robust, combined response would beat the pandemic and things would rerun to normal, she said.
Under Trump’s leadership, the relationship between government and nonprofits has changed, said Enright, and it may take nonprofits time to adjust.
“It is unknown what the interdependencies are going to be between philanthropy and government in the future,” she said. “So there’s a complete recalibration of strategy that might be necessary based on that fundamental change in the dynamic.”
But in the short term, there may be more money on the way. According to a mid-March survey 183 of its 757 grant-making members, the Council on Foundations found that 27 percent planned to increase their giving. About 80 percent anticipated some sort of response, including shifting funding priorities to fill gaps in federal support or collaborating with other grant makers.
Foundations are working to develop a broad, coordinated response, Enright said. But she cautioned that as Congress prepares for debate on tax legislation that could affect nonprofits, it is sometimes best to lay low.
“There’s a very delicate balance that we’re trying to strike by maintaining credibility and tight relationships with Republicans on the Hill and ensuring that they don’t see philanthropy as an instrument of the Democratic Party or the left,” she said.
The Meet the Moment pledge commits signers to several grant-making approaches that have been promoted by the Trust-Based Philanthropy Project over its five year existence. The project was created to address the power imbalance between foundations and the groups they support. It is not a membership organization, but it has provided training and support to dozens of grant makers as the popularity of its approach among philanthropic leaders has increased.
Recognizing that many nonprofits felt abandoned by philanthropy in the weeks after Trump’s inauguration, the pledge calls for signers to proactively check in on grantees to see what they need and offer them services, such as legal support, risk audits, or technology-security consulting, in addition to grant money.
The pledge also includes a call for funders to be transparent about how they are navigating the current political environment, to collaborate with other grant makers, to commit to multiyear support, and to streamline the grant application and reporting processes.
But the pledge takes those trust-based themes further, specifically asking grant makers to increase their payouts and to give to 501(c)(4) social welfare organizations, which have fewer limits on advocacy than charities, to LLCs, and to fiscal sponsors that manage nascent social benefit efforts.
Salehi said she viewed the pledge as aspirational rather than unlocking a specific amount of new grant making. It may be one reason, she said, that most of the pledge signers are from small- to midsize foundations. It can be harder for a larger foundation to sort through all of its grants and switch them from one-year to multi-year disbursements. Also, larger foundations can face a more complicated decision-making process when considering a payout increase because their grants are often spread out over many causes with different goals, and seeking approval from their boards can be more complicated than from a family foundation’s small board.
“Increasing the grant-making budget is definitely a step beyond how we’ve in the past communicated about trust-based philanthropy,” she said. “It is certainly an area that is a sticking point.”
But the leaders of the Trust Based Philanthropy Project are confident that despite the turbulence in the market that is eating away billions of dollars in philanthropy endowments, more grant makers will increase their giving.
“Endowments tend to bounce back, but given the current circumstances, the nonprofit sector may not,” said Pia Infante, the group’s co-executive director in a statement.
One of the Meet the Moment pledge signers was Tyla Sherwin-Cole, who manages about $840,000 in annual grants as executive director of the Doris and Victor Day Foundation in Rock Island, Ill.
Signing the pledge was a “no-brainer,” she said. The foundation was already a member of the Trust-Based Philanthropy Project’s network and, as such, has made more grants for general operations than for specific projects.
The Day Foundation isn’t immediately planning to increase its overall grant making. But to support nonprofits in the Quad Cities area of Illinois and Iowa that are seeing less help from the federal government, Sherwin-Cole has paused grants for capital projects and directed those funds to nonprofits that support basic needs like food and shelter.
While the foundation’s board hasn’t discussed increasing the total amount it makes in grants, Sherwin-Cole said, the issue may come up at its June board meeting.
“All cards are on the table right now,” she said.
Another signatory to the pledge was Sebastian Africano, executive director of Trees, Water, and People, a Fort Collins, Colo., grant maker that supports community-based conservation projects.
Africano said the organization didn’t have to change anything to adhere to the pledge. It is a philanthropic intermediary that has received support from the Native American Agriculture Fund, the Ghanta Family Foundation, and others.
Intermediaries that are “close to the pulse on the ground and the street,” Africano said, are well-positioned to help institutional foundations learn where money is most needed. While he fears that turmoil in the markets will cause some foundations to pull back giving, he predicts the response will be varied.
“There will be others that will accelerate giving — that will make pledges and commitments that show they’re moving forward regardless because they understand the urgency of the moment,” he said.
