Philanthropy This Week

Lori Cannava

Good morning.

The yearslong slump in the number of people giving and volunteering has worrisome implications for nonprofits and civil society as a whole — but there is a way out.

So says the Generosity Commission, which has released the results of a three-year study that suggests social isolation and political polarization are contributing to the problem, reports Sara Herschander. Everyday donors have declined by tens of millions since the first decade of this century and volunteers by millions.

The current crisis started during the Great Recession, but instead of bouncing back, as has happened after previous downturns, the numbers have continued to slide.

The commission blames declining religious affiliation, deteriorating trust in institutions, demographic shifts, and expired tax incentives, though some of the drop in giving to nonprofits may be due to people contributing through different means — through GoFundMe, through B Corps, or directly to individuals. Those numbers weren’t included in the study.

The growing reliance on wealthy donors, to the exclusion of low- and middle-class donors, will hobble fundraising in the future, the commission says. For example, recent college graduates who aren’t engaged by their alumni association may not give when they’re older and have wealth.

“Ten or 20 years down the road, you won’t have that pipeline of younger donors,” Una Osili, director of research at the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, told Sara.

The Commission offers hope through a list of nine ways to restore everyday generosity — among them, expand the breadth and depth of giving and volunteering data, encourage public figures to talk about their generosity, and engage businesses, community foundations, and young people in the effort.

Here’s what else you need to know:

Rebecca Blackwell, AP

A settlement in a court case accusing the Fearless Fund of discrimination for awarding grants to Black women entrepreneurs has left the issue in a gray legal area, reports Alex Daniels.

Experts have wide-ranging opinions on the settlement’s implications: Skylar Croy, a lawyer at the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, which is preparing lawsuits related to privately funded scholarships for students of color, called it “an undeniable win” for opponents of affirmative action.

But E. Bomani Johnson of the ABFE network of Black foundation executives told Alex the Fearless Fund case was unique and wouldn’t apply to race-based grant making — though he worries that foundations might backtrack on their social-justice commitments.

Still, some grant makers are staying the course. As Joanna Jackson of the Weingart Foundation told Alex: “There’s nothing against the law about having a mission that is advancing racial justice.”

In an opinion piece, Catholic University law professor Roger Colinvaux called the settlement a “notable defeat for DEI.”

“The outcome is disappointing and further proof that the tsunami of litigation is having a chilling effect on DEI efforts by nonprofits,” he wrote.

But charities and foundations shouldn’t give up the fight. “And if the courts continue to pervert the interpretation of civil rights protections,” he writes, “charities should take the fight to Congress.”

For more on this topic, join our free online forum Tuesday at 12:30 p.m. Eastern on “The Future of Race-Based Grant Making.” Registration is required.

Nati Harnik, AP

When Warren Buffett’s three adult children inherit his fortune, now valued at $144 billion, he has stipulated that they must give it to charity within 10 years, report Thalia Beaty and Josh Funk of our partner the Associated Press.

Susie, Howard, and Peter Buffett have long experience in philanthropy, having already made $15 billion in charitable donations, but 10 years is still a tight timeframe. Despite the challenge, Howard Buffett told Thalia and Josh that he and his siblings will use the funds to keep taking risks, as they have with their own foundations.

“I can tell you,” he said, “we’ll sit down in a room when the time comes, and we’ll get it figured out pretty quickly.”

In a companion piece, Thalia and Josh describe each of the Buffett family’s philanthropies, including the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, named for the billionaire investor’s first wife, which is focused on reproductive health care. The Buffett children’s own foundations have worked on early childhood education, food security, conflict mitigation, girls’ rights, gender-based violence, and Native American nonprofits

Golisano Foundation

Three family health scares prompted Paychex founder Thomas Golisano to give $360 million though his foundation to 82 charities and $52 million to his foundation, nearly doubling its endowment to $120 million.

“These awards are the result of relationships I’ve formed over the years,” Golisano said to an assembled crowd when he made the surprise announcement. “It is extremely rewarding to see what they have been able to accomplish with my financial support over the years. I hope this unexpected, unrestricted funding helps them build on their successes.”

All of the gifts are going toward causes Golisano has supported in the past — education, health care, human services, and disabilities, reports Maria Di Mento

Golisano has appeared three times on the Chronicle’s annual Philanthropy 50 list of the biggest donors.

— Marilyn Dickey, Senior Editor, Copy

Conservative legal activist and funder Leonard Leo is pushing groups he supports to “weaponize” their plans by doing more acting and less talking. Leo, who reportedly has about $1 billion left from a $1.6 billion donation he received in 2021, told the groups he is doing a “comprehensive review” of his grant-making process. He wants them to “crush liberal dominance at the choke points of influence and power in our society,” according to a letter he sent to them. (Axios)

A coalition of conservationists and locals, some of whom had once been at odds, came together to stop new oil and gas drilling in a pristine part of Colorado. The Bush administration issued about 80 drilling leases in the Thompson Divide, about 250,000 acres of public land in west-central Colorado. Earlier efforts to save the expanse had foundered on disagreements between cyclists and snowmobilers, on the one side, and conservationists on the other. This time, they found success when they joined forces, and lawyers for an environmental nonprofit discovered legal vulnerabilities in the drilling leases. Nervous energy companies started to back out, and this year the Biden administration put a 20-year pause on new oil and gas development to give Congress time to pass permanent protections for the land. (New York Times)

Concerned about hacking by foreign governments, tech entrepreneur and philanthropist Craig Newmark is putting $100 million into efforts to bolster U.S. cybersecurity. Some of the funds will go to a University of Chicago program to train a corps of cybersecurity volunteers to protect local infrastructure as well as a nonprofit that promotes internet safety for children. But most of the money, $88 million, remains to be allocated, and groups can apply on the Craig Newmark Philanthropies website. (Wall Street Journal— subscription)

Ending homelessness in Los Angeles in the coming decade would cost $20.4 billion, according to a draft analysis meant to serve as a roadmap to “functional zero” homelessness. That figure would require local, state, and federal governments to more than double their spending on the issue and would fund “36,000 permanent housing units for homeless residents with chronic health needs and build or subsidize 25,000 additional apartments for very low-income residents.” It also assumes that the city maintains its current level of shelter beds and interim housing through 2029. Los Angeles has about 45,000 homeless residents, 29,000 of whom lack shelter. (Los Angeles Times)

A nonprofit developer was key to California’s hopes for quickly building housing for homeless people, until its projects went into foreclosure, leaving $114 million in state grants in limbo. Step Up On Second Street inspired the state program for turning hotels and motels, emptied out by the Covid-era tourism crash, into apartments for homeless people. But it partnered with a for-profit company, Shangri-La Industries, that took out private loans, alongside state grants, and then defaulted. The state is suing both entities to get back its grant money, and Step Up projects in California, Colorado, and North Carolina have been aborted. (Los Angeles Times)

Thousands of foster children in California could be uprooted as nonprofit foster agencies face an insurance crisis. After large sexual abuse settlements, the Nonprofits Insurance Alliance of California, which says it covers 90 percent of foster agencies, is poised to let policies expire in October. The nonprofits are scrambling to find new insurers, even as many have left the market. Alternatively, short-staffed county agencies would have to start overseeing foster homes, which would trigger a lengthy bureaucratic transfer of responsibility and likely result in fewer “wraparound” services. (Los Angeles Times)

An array of public services in New York City are run by a vast network of nonprofits, many of which enjoy lucrative long-term contracts that come with limited oversight, according to a series of stories reported by Crain’s New York Business. The city will spend $23 billion on contracts in the coming fiscal year, including $7.2 billion for social services, as a result of decades of privatization. Meanwhile, these nonprofits have become a separate power center, enlisting former top city officials and lobbyists into their C-suites or boardrooms, while the city, with its ballooning budget, has not always enjoyed the expected cost savings of shifting work to outside groups. (Crain’s New York Business — subscription)

After some initial delay, large philanthropies are stepping in to help New York City manage an influx of hundreds of thousands of migrants. The Carnegie Corporation of New York recently announced that a gift of $4 million to the city’s public libraries will in part fund more staff who can help connect migrants with services and expand English classes. In addition, the Robin Hood Foundation and the New York Community Trust will donate a total of at least $4 million to nonprofits providing services to migrants. The goal is to help migrants become self-sufficient as the city’s budget is increasingly strained. (New York Times)

Tech billionaire Emmet Stephenson Jr. and his daughter, Tessa Stephenson Brand, are putting $150 million into research on pancreatic cancer four years after their wife and mother, Toni, died of the disease. The gift will go to California’s City of Hope, where Toni Stephenson was treated. To be spread out over 10 years, the money will fund an annual $1 million prize to a leading innovator as well as grants, an annual symposium, and a facility that collects tissues, blood, and other materials needed for pancreatic cancer research. (Los Angeles Times)

Your Chronicle subscription includes free access to GrantStation’s database of grant opportunities.

Street Design: Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Asphalt Art Initiative provides support for arts-driven street redesigns that improve safety, revitalize public spaces, and engage local communities. The Initiative’s current funding round will award ten grants of up to $100,000 each, as well as provide on-call technical assistance and impact evaluation support, to cities in Canada, Mexico, and the United States with populations of 50,000 or more. The focus is on large-scale projects that will make important streets safer and more accessible, create significant new public spaces, or enact other similarly transformative roadway redesigns. Grants up to $100,000; application deadline January 31, 2025.

Access to Food: The America’s Healthy Food Financing Initiative Food Access and Retail Expansion Fund will support innovative fresh food retail and food system enterprises that seek to improve access to healthy food in underserved areas of the United States through food retail. $60 million in loans, grants, and technical assistance will be provided over five years for the predevelopment, planning, and implementation of projects aiming to increase food access, and strengthen, expand, and innovate within the food retail supply chain. Support will be provided for projects in eligible underserved geographic areas. Grants up to $250,000 for implementation, and $100,000 for early-stage planning; applications due October 14, March 3, 2025, and August 4, 2025.