Following a contentious election year, polarization seems to be the norm for the nation. And while many have seen charity as a refuge from strife, in 2025 polarization is, unfortunately, likely to continue to seep into relations between donors and the nonprofits they support, experts who follow philanthropy tell the Chronicle.
Conflicts between donors and nonprofits become more noticeable in increasingly polarized times.
Some of the first — and loudest — salvos came in late 2023 after protests erupted on college campuses over the war in Gaza. Major donors like Bill Ackman, Jon Huntsman, and Marc Rowan made very public shows of withdrawing their support from the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard University. In the following months, donors withdrew support from a smattering of other nonprofits that had made statements supporting Palestine, which led many to wonder if — and how far — this revolt by donors would spread.
A little over a year later, most fundraising observers say the high-profile donor revolt playing out in the headlines isn’t spreading. However, the increased polarization nationwide is still there and is likely to spill over into relationships between donors and the organizations they support. To keep donor relations running smoothly, nonprofits need to lean into discussions about values and build strong relationships between major donors and multiple people at the institution, experts say.
“We’ll continue to see donors express their values through their charitable giving,” says Laura MacDonald, president of the fundraising consultancy Benefactor Group. “As we see the nation become more polarized, we may see those giving patterns diverge more and more.”
‘A Few Very Vocal Individuals’
The Council for Advancement and Support of Education assists more than 3,700 colleges and universities with alumni relations, communications, and fundraising. While headlines have blared about the donor revolt, Sue Cunningham, CEO of CASE, says the institutions the organization works with aren’t reporting it’s a big problem.
“What we’re hearing and what we’re seeing is that it is a few very vocal individuals and that it certainly hasn’t magnified since the outset,” Cunningham says. “This is not an issue that’s growing; not an issue that is continuing to manifest itself in a significant way.”
Some fundraising experts, like Cunningham, say the issue is moot. Others, however, say more donors are making waves behind closed doors. Unfortunately, there’s no way to know exactly what’s happening without talking to every organization, says Michael Moody, professor of philanthropic studies at the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy at Indiana University.
“Most of those conversations continue to be extremely private,” Moody says. “They’re not happening on the front page of the New York Times like they were there for a little while.”
Donors walking away when institutions they support do something they don’t like is not a new phenomenon, according to Moody.
“When universities became co-ed, they lost donors. When they admitted nonwhite people, they lost donors,” he says. “So historically there have always been donors who decided an institution doesn’t fit their values anymore or is doing things that they don’t agree with and decide to pull their money.”
The tension between donors and nonprofits becomes more noticeable in increasingly polarized times. One of the examples Moody offered — admitting nonwhite students — occurred during the intensely divided time of Jim Crow segregation. Today’s environment is also deeply polarized over issues of race and a host of other matters. That division is likely to seep into the relationship between donors and nonprofits because donors give based on their values.
“When you ask donors, especially high-net-worth donors, why they want to make gifts, they are driven by values, and they want to give to institutions that fit their values,” Moody says. “If people are feeling like my values are somehow being threatened by the wider political environment, then of course that’s going to come out in their philanthropy.”
Howard Husock, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, says that “donor intent in philanthropy is self-expression.” He adds that when there is a “divergence in worldview,” donors discontinuing support is “a good decision because they don’t want to support something they don’t believe in.”
Strong Ties With Donors
So in polarized times, how can nonprofits reduce the likelihood of dust-ups with top donors? Experts say it’s crucial to lean into the values organizations and donors share and build relationships with donors across the institution.
“What we’re seeing is that if donors have been loyal to an organization for a long time, you can overcome some of those hiccups with real conversation,” MacDonald says. “Which means asking those questions and listening deeply to their answers and not buying into the polarization or assuming that just because they did X, it’s contrary to the values of your organization.”
To get to those conversations, though, an organization has to have built a strong relationship, because donors are only likely to listen and discuss their concerns if they trust the institution. “Very often they’ve built trust in that relationship over time,” Moody says. “They’ve made requests, and those have been followed through on or they’ve expressed concerns and they felt heard.”
Trust is built between people, not an institution, so the inevitable turnover that happens as people change jobs means it’s important to have many ways for the donor to communicate with the institution.
“In an optimal scenario, the donor relationship involves multiple people across an organization because inevitably people come and go,” Cunningham says. “If it is just one person in an institution, then if they leave, potentially that relationship is lost.”
Good communication is critical, says Sofia Michelakis, managing director at Phila Engaged Giving. She says her clients are supporters of trust-based philanthropy and want to build relationships with organizations they trust.
“The advice I would give to a nonprofit leader: If they sense something is going wrong or there is something controversial, get ahead of it,” Michelakis says. “Talk to the people before something big is going to happen publicly. You can talk to your donors first so they’re not surprised.”
But crises are often unpredictable. Nonprofits should have a game plan ready for unexpected crises, like the war in Gaza, recommends Paul D’Alessandro, founder of High Impact Nonprofit Advisors, a fundraising consultancy. “That’s why crisis management and crisis communication are important.”
Almost 10 years ago, college athletes started kneeling during the national anthem to protest police brutality — a stance that elicited strong emotions. MacDonald says one of her clients had donors who wanted to bolt over the issue.
“The institution, to its credit, really used that as a teachable moment, both with the students and also with donors — talking to them about the fact that we’re shaping 18- and 19-year-olds here, and it ended up in a very constructive conversation,” she says. “As a result, some of the donors leaned back into supporting the organizations.” Others chose not to engage in deeper conversations and maintain some level of support, while others walked away.
And to Cunningham’s point about turnover, when the Chronicle asked MacDonald if her client would speak with us for this article, MacDonald contacted the organization, but it said no because all the people involved with those conversations are now at different institutions.
You can overcome some of those hiccups with real conversation.
As the kneeling example shows, not every donor will stay.
Sometimes donors leave because they don’t see the values alignment, says Cunningham, who still takes an optimistic view. “We may not be on the same page today,” she says. “But it doesn’t mean that in three weeks’, three months’, or three years’ time, we may not find something else on our journey that we want to do together.”
Most donors want to maintain relationships with the charities they support, Moody says.
“Donors, for the most part, still want to have meaningful relationships with the institutions that they trust and have a deep relationship with long term,” he says. “So pulling your money from something is still, for most people, not going to be a decision they take lightly and quickly.”
