Covid-19 Coverage: Opinion

The Paycheck Protection Program excludes nonprofits with more than 500 employees at a time when their services are more critical than ever, say two nonprofit leaders.

Grant makers can promote an economy that puts a premium on caring for everyone and provides support for feminist movements that can gain strength even at a time of social distancing, writes a top official of the Open Society Foundations.

Seek out experts, enable local responses, and support existing grantees, says the head of the Walton Family Foundation and former Unicef USA CEO.

The virus has led to labeling people as disposable, made it tough for students to learn, and highlighted familiar cracks in the social safety net. Here’s how grant makers can turn things around, say the presidents of the Robert Wood Johnson and Ford foundations.

Research shows that talking about race, shared values, and solutions can help change minds and policy.

Grant makers too often hobble organizations that want to build the financial cushions we need to survive crises like the one we face as Covid-19 ravages the economy.

A mass exodus of nonprofit talent could come amid the health and economic crisis, unless we do more to demonstrate the value we and our communities place on the nonprofit work force.

Giving to local organizations and providing cash to the poor can make a difference. But it is also important to give more and give faster, say two experts on philanthropy and global development.

We must do all we can to mitigate gun deaths, injuries, and trauma by supporting organizations working on the front lines of gun violence, domestic violence, and suicide-prevention organizations, write the heads of the California Wellness Foundation and the Hope and Heal Fund.

First responders and frontline groups need more resources, but others will help them. We can do more good sticking by the causes that our communities depend on, says Miriam E. Nelson, acting CEO of the Newman’s Own Foundation.

The businesses and nonprofits that will suffer the most are small and often rooted in neighborhoods with large numbers of people of color. Foundation and endowment capital could make a big difference in their survival.

Moving from giving help to asking for help is a lesson we are learning in the pandemic — and it should change us for the better.

Give people room to focus on their health and families and what matters most in this moment. This is no time for rigid formulas, so let people innovate and adapt.

An expanded service corps could give the jobless a way to help hard-hit nonprofits and communities recover — and unite a divided nation.

Safe voting, strong journalism, and the protection of civil liberties are key areas for foundations and big donors to support.

The toll on nonprofits will cause layoffs and closures, but steady leadership from the board can avert the worst situations. Here are steps to take now.

Foundations are good at helping communities survive a tragedy, but restoring a sense of normalcy and reimagining a more just world at the other end of the pandemic will take bold, collective action.

Pluralism in democratic governance has been key to the strength and endurance of the American republic, but in the pandemic that we now face, might we even begin to ask whether federalism can also kill.

Too many people communicating doesn’t help. What grant makers can do to make a bigger difference is spend big and ask grantees what they need most.

Advocacy in Washington helped channel billions of dollars to nonprofits, benefiting philanthropists who depend on charitable organizations to advance important causes. So why do such a tiny sliver of grant makers do more to support the coalitions behind these policy advances.

Is the current scrappy, urgent approach to grant making the one we must all adopt forever after?

As we learn what technology can do — and what it can’t — to improve learning, we can ensure that precious education dollars are spent in ways that do the most for the neediest youngsters.

Follow the model of the Gates Foundation, which says when there is no vaccine, communications is a vaccine. And stop taking up airtime now with messages that keep the public from paying attention to the urgent need to stay home.

Supermarket checkout clerks, hospital custodians, day care workers, and many other low-wage employees are putting themselves at risk to save lives. Here’s how to help the everyday heroes.

In the lead up to World War I, America created a Committee on Public Information which quickly signed on advertising executives, university professors, commercial artists, and film producers. Influential foundation executives should create the same kind of effort now.

The helpers need our help, says columnist Joan Garry, as she urges support for local charities.

Philanthropy’s focus is rightfully on urgent needs, but we must also do all we can to ensure that the voices of those hurt most by the coronavirus are heard in the 2020 elections and census count.

Grant makers are showing new flexibility in their grants, but nonprofits need far more to survive the coronavirus calamity. Here’s what to do – and what to expect for the three stages of funding needs ahead.

Understanding how perpetuity became the default for philanthropies can help grant makers rethink their attitudes toward giving now versus giving later, especially in a time of catastrophe.

While many people criticize the funds for sitting on assets, if history proves right, donors will send lots of money to charities doing essential work as global health and the economy are at risk.

The coronavirus will take a greater toll on people who were marginalized before the crisis started. It isn’t too late for the nonprofit world to do something about it.

Lack of flexible funds and reserves will cripple many nonprofits; grant makers can help by loosening reporting rules and restrictions and maintaining grant levels even as the stock-market swoon hurts their endowments.

As the coronavirus spreads, it’s time for donors to provide the money emergency responders need now and to set the stage for work that prevents these horrific diseases.