Philanthropy This Week

Good morning.

It’s never been easier to make charitable gifts anonymously through any number of digital options or intermediaries, reports Drew Lindsay in our October cover story.

Giving through a donor-advised fund, a limited liability company, or a fiscal sponsor can shield donor information from nonprofits. And platforms like Benevity for workplace giving and GiveCampus for educational institutions’ crowdfunding offer privacy options.

People have wide-ranging reasons to want to hide their identities, whether out of security concerns, modesty, or a wish to hide their wealth. They may want to give to controversial issues without criticism, funnel “dark money” to influence politics, or avoid being deluged with gift requests.

But despite all the options and motivations, available research suggests there hasn’t been a surge in donors wanting to hide behind a curtain.

“We almost never see — and almost never hear of — people who say, ‘I’m giving my money to this university or this private high school, and I don’t want them to know who I am,’” GiveCampus CEO Kestrel Linder told Drew.

In fact, only 5 percent of people who give anonymously through donor-advised funds do so with the intent of hiding their identity, according to two studies, and charities can take steps to try to find out who DAF donors are.

Anonymous giving seems to be more of a phenomenon among older generations. Younger people tend to want their giving to be visible because they want to find others willing to collaborate to drive change.

Said Alyssa Wright, whose Wright Collective firm helps progressive organizations with capital campaigns and major gifts: “I feel like the anonymous gifts we see are, for lack of a better phrase, the last round of gifts from an older generation.”

Here’s what else you need to know:

With Melinda French Gates’s new contest to give $250 million to small charities that focus on women’s and girls’ physical and mental health, she is hoping to identify nonprofits that have been overlooked or that are addressing emerging threats, reports Alex Daniels.

“We don’t want to be the funder sitting in Seattle picking winners,” Haven Ley, Pivotal’s chief strategy officer, told Alex. “We want to be throwing out the net as broad as we possibly can.”

The money is part of French Gates’s earlier commitment to pour $1 billion into women’s and girls’ causes and will come from her Pivotal Ventures limited liability company. So far, it doesn’t seem as though French Gates plans to use the $12.5 billion that she got in her divorce settlement from Bill Gates to build a massive foundation. Pivotal Ventures has a staff of 100, a far cry from the Gates Foundation’s 2,000-plus employees in 10 offices around the world.

As Ley told Alex: “Melinda believes that philanthropy can be effectively done through small and nimble means and teams.”

Stephanie Keith, Getty Images

The growing number of university leaders acknowledging the need for programs that emphasize pluralism — respect for diverse identities and cooperation for the common good — offers hope to our columnist Eboo Patel.

“Too much diversity work in America, whether at charities, universities, or businesses, separates people into convenient binaries,” writes Patel. “Oppressor and oppressed, villain and victim, wicked and wounded, privileged and marginalized, racist and antiracist.”

Groups like Search for Common Ground, BridgeUSA, and the Constructive Dialogue Institute have been working nonstop giving talks and conducting college workshops around the country on how people who disagree with each other can build relationships.

“That, after all, is what makes diversity challenging and interesting,” he writes. “Diversity is not just the differences we like. It’s not just samosas and sushi. It’s also the differences we don’t like.”

Bank of America

Young people want to make a big impact on the causes they care about by doing more than giving.

Gen Z and millennials — whose favorite causes are fighting hunger, poverty, and homelessness; supporting human rights and social justice; and addressing environmental issues — are eager to volunteer and collaborate, according to two recent studies, one of wealthy donors and the other of middle-income ones, reports Maria Di Mento.

“They’re really committed to impact, and they’re not giving out of an obligation,” Dianne Chipps Bailey, who leads Bank of America’s Philanthropic Solutions, told Maria.

One study found that 87 percent of millennials and 71 percent of Gen Zers had given to charity in the previous year, and 58 and 52 percent, respectively, had volunteered.

Charities should take note and start developing relationships with them now, say experts. These donors are busy raising families and building their careers, but as time passes and their wealth grows, they’ll start giving bigger sums.

The Chronicle is livestreaming keynote sessions from ComNet24, the Communications Network annual gathering in Kansas City, Mo.

Watch Thursday and Friday, October 17 and 18.

— Marilyn Dickey, Senior Editor, Copy

Over a few short years, Melinda French Gates’s public profile has evolved from the studiously nonpartisan co-leader of a global philanthropy to an “ascendant Democratic megadonor.” The change coincides with her greater independence, having divorced Bill Gates and left the foundation they both led, as well as the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. French Gates also credits her children with raising her political consciousness, while one activist for paid family leave, with whom French Gates has worked, said it also stems from the billionaire’s realization that some of the problems she wants to solve are political, requiring political solutions. (New York Times)

Groups working to register Latino voters say they are being trailed, filmed, and harassed by conservative activists who claim they are illegally registering non-citizens. They have not reported any violence, but one group is training its canvassers in de-escalation tactics and some are advising them “to scrub their public social media profiles and avoid posting photos showing their location in real time.” Voting by non-citizens is exceedingly rare. One elections expert called the conservative efforts “a political stunt designed to inflame,” but conservative activists say they are trying to expose flaws in the voter-registration process. (New York Times)

A coalition of nonprofits in Alabama has launched an effort to help more people vote in the coming election amid new state voting restrictions. At the heart of the initiative is the Defend the Ballot website, which allows visitors to check their registration and polling place, see what candidates and issues are on their ballot, and find out about upcoming events to encourage voter participation. The coalition of civil rights, faith, and environmental groups says it is countering ongoing voter suppression. Alabama’s secretary of state accused it of “data mining,” but the coalition says it does not collect information from website users. (Alabama Reflector)

Sen. J.D. Vance said a second Trump administration would seek to end federal funding for Planned Parenthood. The Republican vice presidential nominee, who last week said his party needs to “earn the American people’s trust back” on the issue of abortion, told RealClearPolitics that taxpayers should not be funding late-term abortions. Planned Parenthood gets about one-third of its funding from the federal government, which it uses to provide birth control and preventive screenings for cancer and sexually transmitted diseases for low-income Americans. The head of the nonprofit’s super PAC noted that Planned Parenthood is already banned from using federal funds for abortions and said the cuts would “rob millions of people across the country of vital, affordable care.” (Washington Post)

A major nonprofit provider of shelter and housing in Boston is helping homeless people exercise their right to vote. The Pine Street Inn is offering its clients a permanent address for registering to vote and educating them about the candidates and ballot questions. It is also holding registration drives and dispelling misconceptions, including that a criminal record bars a person from voting. It does not advocate for candidates or positions. Boston’s homeless population grew by 10.6 percent to 5,756 in 2024 from last year. (Boston Globe)

Princeton University will once again allow its researchers to accept backing from fossil fuel companies, reversing a decision it made two years ago to “dissociate” from such funds. In a letter, university officials told academic staff that the policy had not only hindered scholarship on climate change but had also cost researchers the chance to join “collaborative partnerships focused on important work that is aligned with the university’s values.” A leader of a student climate group worried that the reversal could encourage research into “false, industry-friendly solutions.” Princeton has committed to divest fossil fuel holdings from its endowment, although it owns a private investment firm with shares in energy companies. (Financial Times— subscription)

Eyeing recent antidiscrimination lawsuits and court rulings, large companies are rolling back or recasting grant programs originally intended to help minority groups. “Of more than 60 small-business grant programs that in 2023 included race or ethnicity in their criteria, more than 40 percent no longer exist or appear to be moribund,” according to one analysis, while “another 27 percent no longer use race or ethnicity in making awards.” Meanwhile, Black- and Hispanic-owned small businesses remain less likely to receive full funding than white-owned ones, and “startups led by Black and Latino founders have each received less than 1 percent of U.S. venture-capital funding this year, according to Crunchbase.” (Wall Street Journal — subscription)

The Atlanta Opera has found new ways to reach its audience, helping it to grow while other opera companies around the country are in retreat. Artistic director Tomer Zvulun said mounting circus-tent productions during the pandemic was key, bringing in new audiences who had nowhere else to see live performances. Since then, he has brought the opera to unconventional spaces around town and used novel programming approaches to keep the city’s attention. Since Zvulun started at the company in 2013, its budget has tripled to roughly $15 million. (New York Times)

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