My perpetual low-level nausea has persisted for eight weeks now. Each day I read about another decimated federal agency. And each day I hear from a grantee or allied organization whose funding is at risk and who is searching for answers. I keep waiting for this feeling of crisis to subside, but it never does.
I’ve written about the ways that the present moment feels like the pandemic, but there are critical differences in how philanthropy is reacting now. During the pandemic, we were scared for our families, communities, country, and planet. But grant makers like my employer — the Robert Sterling Clark Foundation — were largely insulated from the chaos experienced by hospitals, schools, and community-based organizations.
Today, in addition to the threats facing grantees, those of us working at foundations feel exposed and vulnerable. Witness the reaction to a controversial Chronicle of Philanthropy article listing 346 large foundations that could be investigated under the Trump administration’s diversity, equity, and inclusion crackdown. While I disagree with the decision to highlight those institutions, I’m also certain that we all need to build our muscles to take on this new reality.
As a foundation vice president, I’ve never been called upon to be brave. I’ve been controversial, annoying, and wrong, but I haven’t for a minute felt at personal risk. The nonprofits we support and the people they serve face risks every day. I often strategize with them about mitigating and minimizing risk, but I haven’t contended with such challenges on behalf of my own organization.
Now, however, when I write this column or post something on our website or contemplate funding a new organization, I find myself concerned about how the action might be perceived, and how I will be affected.
I think it might turn out that I’m kind of a chicken.
Facing Risk
Today’s philanthropic leaders, boards, and staff have had little practice assessing or dealing with risk in our own workplaces. The last time private foundations came under significant federal scrutiny was in the lead up to the Tax Reform Act of 1969 when I was an infant. During my career in philanthropy, discussions about those reforms have rarely come up.
Once we spend our 5 percent and meet the standards set by our individual boards, there are few other measures of accountability we need to worry about. The biggest risk to me has seemed to be a poor assessment from the Center for Effective Philanthropy or a write-up in Crappy Funding Practices.
The week after the election, when I was in a fog of exhaustion and confusion about how to respond, I listened to an interview with Anna Galland, the former executive director of MoveOn.org. Something she said that day moved me so deeply that I taped her words above my desk: “We should all do the most courageous thing we can, and we should do it as publicly as we can again and again and again in the coming years.”
I want to follow her lead, but how do I learn to be brave? I realize I can’t wait until I’m no longer scared. Indeed, the definition of bravery is being scared and doing the thing anyway.
Here’s how Benjamin Soskis, a senior research associate at the Urban Institute, defines what I call philanthropy’s “taste of honey” problem:
“One paradox we are experiencing in real time is that the possession (or stewardship) of great wealth often doesn’t make the wealth holder or steward braver, more able or willing to take risks and assert independence from the state, but more risk-adverse, more timid, more dependent on state sanction or license. Less free — even as they maintain their ability to dominate others.”
How Do We Respond?
A recent Center for Effective Philanthropy research brief illustrates just how much strain nonprofits are under right now and points out that it is our job as grant makers to respond to their needs in both word and deed. One key finding is that nonprofit leaders want more communication from their funders about “the implications of the political context” on their work, but few are getting that right now.
I’ve heard many people say that public statements by foundations are performative, and I agree that is often the case. But in this moment, I appreciate colleagues publicly addressing the precarious time we’re in and reminding us of their values and mission. So I thank the leaders of the Boston Foundation, Freedom Together Foundation, the California Endowment, and a few others who have shared the actions they’re taking to stay true to their values.
A few weeks after the election, I witnessed what bravery can look like in our sector when Rickke Mananzala, president of the New York Foundation, stood in front of a room full of local nonprofit leaders and said this:
“It’s time to rethink our role, unlock our resources, and fund the conditions for connection, trust, and collective resilience. … We as funders need to shed our risk-averse nature. If we want our movements to take bold actions, we must be willing to take risks ourselves. We need to support leaders who push back against systems designed to exclude them and who have built movements that prioritize not just survival but true liberation. Our communities are constantly stepping up for each other; we need to step up for them.”
Listening to Rickke, I felt less alone and more inspired. I imagine that the grantees who hear his words can take comfort in knowing that the foundation’s support isn’t going anywhere.
I take comfort, too, in the realization that I don’t have to feel brave. I just have to act brave. That means doing what our grantees and collaborators need most — moving more money and doing it faster with fewer strings attached. To Fiona Kanagasingam, vice president of equity and culture at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, it means doubling down on the notion that “rapid response and general operating support is strategic philanthropy.”
Inspired by these leaders, I’m starting to develop a game plan for taking the most courageous actions I can — again and again. So far, that’s involved more actively advocating and fundraising for grantees, getting funds to them quickly, and speaking up about the risks we’re all facing, including how we are and aren’t addressing them. It has also meant engaging my peers in the sector to keep asking ourselves and each other what we should be doing more of right now.
I like to think I’m starting to shed a few of my chicken feathers — recognizing that I still have a long way to go.
