As Donald Trump begins his second term, the nonprofit world is rightfully shoring up its defenses to protect immigrants, LGBTQ+ rights, reproductive freedoms, and basic civil liberties. Such efforts are crucial, but another tool of repression demands greater attention: the targeting of civil society itself, particularly by attacking the legal, financial, and communication infrastructure of nonprofits and their donors.
Governments using this authoritarian playbook don’t need to shut down an organization or arrest activists to be successful. Audits, frivolous lawsuits, and endless paperwork can bring their work to a halt. They can be labeled foreign agents, terrorists, or extremists. Bank accounts can be frozen. Nonprofits can lose funding if their donors, intermediaries, and fiscal sponsors are targeted.
We’re both intimately familiar with this strategy. We were born in the repressive former Soviet Union and have supported activists and journalists in some of the most restrictive countries. We’ve seen this tactic used repeatedly in Hungary, Turkey, Russia, Uganda, and many others, first through our work at the Open Society Foundations and then as the co-founders of STROIKA, which supports and connects anti-authoritarian grassroots movements globally. In each case, the vilification of independent organizations as so-called enemies from within often includes increased scrutiny of their funding sources or alleged administrative violations as a way to stifle dissent.
The Trump administration has already signaled it will deploy such tactics. Trump’s pick to lead the IRS, for example, is not opposed to taking away an organization’s tax-exempt status if he disagrees with its mission. Legislation that passed the House last year — and is expected to pass in the Senate — will allow the administration to strip organizations of their nonprofit status by labeling them as terrorists. Meanwhile, Vice President JD Vance has called some foundations “cancers on American society.”
Over the past year, STROIKA has helped U.S. groups — including independent media outlets, civil-liberties lawyers, climate-justice movements, trans activists, and foundations — build their resilience for 2025 and beyond. Alarmingly, however, we’ve found that grant makers and nonprofits, regardless of their size, are woefully underprepared for attacks on their ability to operate. In their focus on securing their mission and programs, many forget that as legal entities — with salaries to pay, bank accounts to manage, and contractual obligations to meet — their operational structure itself is vulnerable.
A Slow Burn
Even seemingly neutral work can be targeted. And while repressive measures may be unleashed all at once, creating panic and paralysis, more often such restrictions happen gradually, like frogs boiling slowly in a pot. Each new restriction becomes the norm, paving the way for the next.
We cannot predict how a second Trump administration will unfold, but we do know this: With one-party control of the presidency, Senate, and House of Representatives, civil-society groups may be the last remaining check on otherwise unchecked power. This makes them particularly vulnerable.
With that in mind, funders must invest in protecting civil society’s operations immediately — plugging the holes before the damage becomes irreparable. This is not the time for further mappings and landscaping studies. The threat is clear, and the time to act is now.
Below are our top recommendations, based on global experience, for what philanthropy must prioritize and fund — both for their grantees and for their own internal operations — to withstand authoritarian attacks from this administration.
Explore alternate legal structures. To maintain their tax-exempt status, nonprofits are subject to extensive reporting and IRS compliance requirements. That makes them particularly vulnerable to government scrutiny. By contrast, authoritarians are usually hesitant to restrict the for-profit sector, which already faces fewer barriers in a business-friendly U.S. legal environment. They may even decrease regulation to enable their own corruption. For these reasons, the most resilient organizations in countries where civic space is shrinking set up alternative legal entities early on.
An immigrant-rights organization, for example, might consider registering one or more independent limited-liability companies, or LLCs, in other states or countries. These LLCs could continue to receive funds from donors or intermediaries, and pay program and staff costs via consultancy agreements, in case the 501(c)(3) entity is forced to halt operations.
Foundations should be flexible about supporting individuals and legal entities that do not have 501(c)(3) status and encourage peer donors to do the same. And they can provide legal support to grantees registering LLCs and other for-profit companies. This alternative legal and financial structure can lay dormant until needed, but be quickly activated should the nonprofit come under attack. Foundations can also consult a trusted attorney to register other independent organizational entities themselves.
Secure your finances. Financial compliance is an easy place of vulnerability because even unfounded accusations of financial malfeasance or money laundering can lead to an organization’s assets being frozen while investigations occur, irreparably damaging its reputation.
Allocate resources for yourself and your grantees to hire trusted accountants to ensure books are audit-ready and all documents and past filings can stand up to financial investigations. Then, develop clear plans for how you can fund grantees if existing accounts are inaccessible or your foundation’s work is criminalized. That could include opening additional bank accounts or establishing partner agreements with other organizations that can make payments on your behalf, including intermediary organizations or fiscal hosts.
Support grantees in doing similar scenario planning focused on how they will pay salaries and expenses if they’re targeted. They could, for example, open a for-profit entity or partner with a more secure organization to pay staff as consultants. Or they could work with intermediaries who use prepaid cash cards or cryptocurrency to move funds.
Safeguard communication and information systems. Establish alternative communication channels with staff, grantees, and donor networks, using end-to-end encrypted messaging services, such as Signal. This minimizes the chances of a third party accessing sensitive data and releasing it to the public or using it as evidence in a lawsuit.
Support grantees in also using secure communication platforms to reach their audiences and beneficiaries. And start early to ensure everyone is accustomed to these changes. This is also the time to do a thorough digital security audit of both in-office and work-from-home systems.
Review data-retention policies. Grant makers retain enormous amounts of data about every aspect of their own work and their grantees’. While that’s helpful for monitoring and learning, foundations hold on to far more information than needed for IRS compliance, posing risks in case of a subpoena or digital security breach. Since requirements vary by state, donors should review data-retention policies with a trusted attorney and avoid keeping more than needed while remaining compliant with state and federal laws.
Add unrestricted funds for security. Funders committed to supporting at-risk groups and movements must accept the financial and logistical demands involved, both internally and for their grantees.
The overhead costs that are so often capped by grant makers are critical to retaining the qualified professionals who will help nonprofits withstand future attacks. To effectively protect and sustain grantees’ work, foundations must increase unrestricted funding for operational costs, as well as earmark money for security.
Emergency funds for the unexpected, such as physical and digital security threats, audits, and litigation, must be easily accessible. Grant makers that can’t move funds efficiently can use intermediaries and service providers with a proven track record of rapid response and the capacity to support the fields they fund.
Internal resistance is likely when proposing big changes to funding approaches and challenging the status quo within institutions. But “we’ve always done it this way” is no longer an excuse. We’ve seen remarkable problem-solving when program and operational staff from across different departments collaborate to prepare for a range of future scenarios. And we encourage grant makers to share their strategies with peer organizations to help shift practices across the sector.
To move beyond this moment of paralysis and despair, grant makers should start taking these steps immediately. Investing in preparedness now will be far less expensive and time consuming than being stuck in a reactive mode later. It will also help fortify American civil society’s resilience for the long term — not just the next four years.
