Fearing the potential for violence, chaos, and a flood of misinformation in the aftermath of Tuesday’s election, foundations are looking to free up more cash to support grantees that will be on the front lines in the event of disputes over the results.
Many foundations that typically set aside some of their grant budget for late-in-the-year emergencies tapped out those accounts throughout the year as they responded to Covid-19 and the calls for racial justice that followed the killing of George Floyd by police. But the threats of violence surrounding the election, the probability that the results won’t be known on election night, and the potential that disinformation campaigns could whip up partisan hostility have prompted some grant makers to consider making new grants postelection.
“There are likely going to be some needs that we can’t anticipate right now after the election,” says Jim Canales, president of the Barr Foundation in Boston. “We are indeed planning to set some additional resources aside, even if we exceed our grant-making budget for the year in order to be in a position to respond to whatever need might emerge.”
The Barr Foundation had set aside about 10 percent of its $95 million grant-making budget to respond to needs that arise during the course of the year, but most of that money has been spent, Canales says.
This week, the Barr Foundation and several other Boston-area grant makers, including the Boston and Hyams Foundations, were invited by Imari Paris Jeffries, executive director of King Boston, a nonprofit that is leading efforts to erect a monument to Martin Luther and Coretta Scott King, to contribute to a fund to respond to postelection needs.
Paris Jeffries says he’s gotten “soft commitments” totaling more than $250,000. How the money will be used will depend on how events unfold on Election Day and the days that immediately follow. According to Paris Jeffries and Canales, the money could support bail payments, trained facilitators to help keep any demonstrations peaceful, and to support local store owners who, instead of boarding up their shops during a large protest, could instead provide protestors with food and water.
Paris Jeffries calls the election a “climactic moment,” capping a year in which philanthropy responded to the pandemic and racial uprisings. Unlike those events, the election date is set in the calendar, and foundations have had a chance to prepare. Paris Jeffries hopes foundations will use the next week to listen to grass-roots nonprofits to learn about their needs.
“Philanthropy has a tendency to respond and react,” he says. “There’s an opportunity here to be proactive.”
Ready for Unrest
Some foundations have expressed confidence that grant increases they made earlier in the year will put grantees in a solid position to deal with whatever events unfold next week. In June, the Ford Foundation offered a $1 billion “social bond” to finance an increase in its payout.
“Ford’s once-in-a-century social bond instrument has enabled us to double our grant making. Because most of our grant making is general operating support, grantees have flexibility and can decide best how to program their funds to respond to moments of opportunity or challenge,” the foundation wrote in an emailed statement.
Over the past several years, two efforts at the Hewlett Foundation — its U.S. Democracy Program and Cyber Initiative — have made multiyear grants to nonprofits preparing for the possibility of a disputed election, according to Daniel Stid, the U.S. Democracy program’s director. In the spring, the foundation allocated $2.5 million more to those efforts to help secure the vote during the pandemic.
In an email, Stid said there were no plans to release more funds postelection, but he said the foundation remains flexible.
“We’re going into November with our eyes wide open, ready to respond as needed,” he said.
Over the summer, as federal officers cleared protesters out of Lafayette Square outside the White House, and protesters and officers clashed in Portland, Ore., donors to the Piper Fund, a donor collaborative housed at the Proteus Fund, feared that the right to protest would be violated following the election.
The fund, which has received grants from the General Services Foundation, Wallace Global Fund, and other donors, set aside about $250,000 to respond to events following the election. So far this year, the fund has made about $2.3 million in grants.
Where the money will go depends on how people respond to the election, but the grants could go to groups that provide de-escalation training during protests and to efforts reminding local elected leaders about the importance of the right to protest, according to Julia Reticker-Flynn, a program officer at the fund. Over the past year, groups the fund has supported in similar activities include Honor the Earth, Louisiana Bucket Brigade, and the BlackOUT Collective.
Anita Khashu, director of the Four Freedoms Fund, anticipates a need for a surge in grant making following the election.. A big need, she says, will be for foundations to support a “counternarrative” to messages of voter fraud that could undermine the results.
Finding Room in the Budget
Over the past year, the Four Freedoms Fund, a donor collaborative managed by NEO Philanthropy that supports immigrants, has been stretched thin. Immigrants have been hit disproportionately hard by Covid, and many may not have qualified for federal support during the pandemic.
Khashu says she set aside about 4 percent of her annual grant-making budget, or about $500,000, to be used before the end of March 2021. If the vote is in dispute in the days and weeks following the election, Khashu says organizers and canvassers who were paid to mobilize voters leading up to the election would likely continue their work, drumming up support for efforts to ensure every vote is counted. In addition to those payroll expenses, the fund is supporting grantees to develop crisis communications and protection against digital and physical threats that could be made following the election.
“The needs have been relentless,” Khashu says. “It’s left less for the postelection. We have held some money back, but not as much as we would have liked.”
Similarly, Unbound Philanthropy, a grant maker that supports immigrants, set aside about 10 percent of its grant-making budget to be used postelection. During the early months of the pandemic, however, the foundation saw that immigrants it serves needed basic services like food and money for rent. Many of the community-organizing nonprofits it supports shifted their operations to help.
Policy Disputes
Foundations also are gearing up to engage on policy in new ways postelection.
Unbound Philanthropy saw that it had its work cut out for it no matter who wins the election. Over the past year, the foundation has supported meetings of social-justice immigration groups to plan for responding to various election outcomes, including the presidential race and the balance of power in Congress.
As a result, the foundation has little money left to support needs that could arise after the election.
“We haven’t spent all the money we set aside, but we’re pretty close,” says Ted Wang, Unbound’s U.S. program director.
The election provides philanthropy with an opportunity to rethink how they support their grantees, says Tamieka Mosley, director of Grantmakers for Southern Progress. Instead of using grants to patch what they see as an immediate need, Mosley hopes foundation officers listen to grantees, especially grass-roots groups benefiting people who have been politically marginalized, to help them emerge from the election stronger than before.
“Foundations need to move the money,” she says. “There needs to be resources available pre- and postelection. But we also have to think systemically about how philanthropy needs to change its practice to support this work long term. It’s more than just about this election.”
