Nonprofit leaders reacted to Donald Trump’s presidential election victory with everything from dismay to elation, depending on the issues they champion.
Conservative, anti-abortion leaders, such as Brad Mattes, president of the Life Issues Institute, cheered the result.
“It is our hope and prayer that this election sent a powerful message that America does not support radical proposals for unlimited abortion,” he said in a statement. “Life Issues Institute will continue to change hearts and minds through pro-life education, and together we will continue to create a culture of life.”
The Philanthropy Roundtable, a network of conservative donors and foundations, said it hopes that it could work with policymakers during another Trump presidency to pass tax and donor privacy laws that could encourage more giving.
“Philanthropic freedom is not a right or left issue, and we look forward to working with policymakers on both sides of the aisle to protect this constitutional right,” said Christie Herrera, president and CEO of Philanthropy Roundtable, in a statement.
A second Trump administration, many conservative nonprofits said, will benefit pro-life organizations and add further momentum to roll back diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts at universities and the workplace.
Meanwhile, progressive nonprofit leaders reacted with foreboding about what another Trump presidency will mean for the environment, reproductive rights, racial justice, and a host of other causes.
As they braced for fierce policy battles to come, progressives’ initial responses painted a gloomy picture of the “dark days,” “devastation,” and “chaos” that left-of-center nonprofit leaders believe will come with a new Trump administration and a GOP-controlled Senate.
The result of the vote, said Aaron Dorfman, executive director of the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, a progressive advocacy organization, will require grant makers to step up their support of grassroots groups.
“We are going to need some radical solidarity in the coming years,” Dorfman said. “Donors and foundations need to stand with those who are fighting for their rights, their freedoms, and their dignity.”
A group of 16 California grant makers pledged to do just that in a statement released Tuesday as ballots were still being cast on the West Coast. The group, which included the California Endowment, James Irvine Foundation, Silicon Valley Community Foundation, and Weingart Foundation, said the state had “weathered dark storms of division before” and has always come back stronger.
“We stand in solidarity with our frontline partners and pledge to invest boldly to drive racial justice, advance prosperity, and sustain California as a global force — not despite our diversity but because of it. We renew our promise to protect and defend our people, our rights, our environment, and our progress. We commit to deploy our resources, speaking up for what is right and speaking out against injustice.”
While the responses from progressive nonprofits spoke of outrage and heartbreak, Trump’s victory should have been fully expected when distrust of big institutions like foundations, news media, and universities continues to fester, said Michael Hartmann, senior fellow at the Capital Research Center, a conservative philanthropy think tank.
The election results represent the political consolidation of a populist surge that Trump activated in 2016, Hartmann said in a statement.
“A lot of big, establishment sectors and ‘pillars’ of society, culture, and the economy will be on the defensive,” he said. “This would include elite, progressive Big Philanthropy — which, if it had been paying attention, probably should have been prepared for this.”
In many ways, nonprofits are already prepared for Tuesday’s outcome. Progressive organizations expect to devise strategies from what they learned during Trump’s first administration.
The Sierra Club, for instance, said that it would be “force of nature” in its defense of the environment and draw upon its experience from the first Trump administration. From 2016 to 2020, it filed more than 300 lawsuits against the administration, researched the backgrounds of political appointees, and filed a slew of Freedom of Information Act requests to shed light on agency actions. Its push for an energy transition, the nonprofit said, resulted in more coal plant closures during the Trump administration than during President Obama’s time in office.
Nonprofits also have Project 2025, a policy blueprint from the Heritage Foundation that was authored, in part, by many former Trump officials, to guide them, said Damon Hewitt, president of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.
Hewitt spent election night with staff who were operating an election hotline for people to report any difficulties experienced while voting.
When Hewitt got up Wednesday morning, he had a video call with his family, spoke to his communications team, and planned for video meetings with his whole staff and with supporters later in the day.
While he expressed disappointment, he was buoyed by a call he had early in the day with his mentor, University of North Carolina law professor Ted Shaw, who previously worked with Hewitt at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, and resigned from a position as an attorney in the U.S. Department of Justice to protest the Reagan administration’s civil rights record.
The conversation called to mind for Hewitt the Stevie Wonder song “Ordinary Pain” and the fact that struggles faced by Black people are nothing new. The key for the Lawyers’ Committee, he said, is to learn from past struggles and focus not on the people and policies it is against but to try to achieve better clarity about what it is fighting for.
“I woke up this morning and looked around and America is still America,” he said in an interview. “People are still going to work. I’m still Black. It’s not as if the civil rights and racial justice agenda was not facing significant headwinds yesterday, last year, or the year before.”
Here are some of the other reactions from nonprofit leaders, compiled by the Chronicle’s staff.
“We will vehemently fight any effort to pass a national abortion ban, to stop the provision of medication abortion by mail, to block women from crossing state lines to get care, [and] to dismantle U.N. protections for reproductive rights and progress made at the national level in countries around the world.
— Nancy Northup, president and CEO, Center for Reproductive Rights
“American women rejected the woke nonsense that has hurt our country so much. And today they voted for a leader to lead that effort.
— Penny Nance, president and CEO Concerned Women for America
“Now the work begins to dismantle the pro-abortion policies of the Biden-Harris administration. President Trump’s first-term pro-life accomplishments are the baseline for his second term. In the long term, GOP pro-life resolve must be strengthened and centered on the unalienable right to life for unborn children that exists under the 14th Amendment.
— Marjorie Dannenfelser, president, Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America
“We need to organize and build cross-community solidarity. We need to fund and resource grassroots organizers. We need to transform institutions and policies to become racially equitable. We need to hold each other, especially the most vulnerable, closely, with care, love, and hope. And despite the fires around us, we need to believe in a shared vision of a racially just world, one that is possible in this lifetime.”
— Nikko Viquiera, deputy senior vice president of programs, Race Forward, on LinkedIn
“Together, we will fight the fascist President-elect and his racist deportation agenda every step of the way.”
— New York Immigration Coalition, on X
“We look forward to this historic term, during which President Trump has an opportunity to make America great, healthy, safe, and prosperous once again. The entire conservative movement stands united behind him as he prepares to secure our wide-open border, restore the rule of law, put parents back in charge of their children’s education, restore America to its proper place as a leader in manufacturing, put families and children first, and dismantle the deep state.”
— Kevin Roberts, president, Heritage Foundation, on X
“We must act immediately to resist Project 2025. Here’s what we know right now: Project 2025 will be felt first and hardest at the state and local levels, directly targeting the rights and security of communities of color, LGBTQ+ communities, immigrants, women, and especially everyone at every intersection of these groups. If we can preserve the reach grassroots leaders built during the election cycle, we can build a national movement to resist authoritarianism.”
— Tides Foundation, on LinkedIn
“Donald Trump heading back to the White House won’t be a death knell to the clean energy transition that has rapidly picked up pace these last four years. Both Republican-led and Democratic-led states are seeing the benefits of wind, solar, and battery manufacturing and deployment thanks to the billions of dollars of investments unleashed by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act. Governors and representatives in Congress on both sides of the aisle have come to recognize that clean energy is a huge moneymaker and a job creator. President Trump will face a bipartisan wall of opposition if he attempts to rip away clean energy incentives now.
— Dan Lashof, U.S. director, World Resources Institute
“Donald Trump’s first term as president was marked by bigotry, xenophobia, white supremacist rhetoric, and extensive human rights violations. ... We are ready to hold the second Trump administration accountable to international human rights obligations. We will never give up fighting for human rights.”
— Amnesty International
“Trump and his allies told us what he plans to do: mass deportations, ending birthright citizenship, ending the right to public education for immigrant children, internment camps, and using the military to hunt down immigrants. We should take him at his word.”
— Kica Matos, president, National Immigration Law Center
