Philanthropy This Week

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Good morning.

Two-thirds of nonprofits could be under serious financial strain because their federal grants have been frozen or canceled, according to one estimate. In response, many groups may turn to small-dollar donors to help make up the shortfall. But asking for gifts over and over again won’t result in a reliable stream of income, reports Allison Fine, leader of the nonprofit Every.org.

People don’t like to be inundated with requests, she says. “Acquiring new donors is expensive,” she writes. “You have to rent lists, create content, pay for mailing software.” According to Fine, the return on solicitation for new donors is only about 3 percent, and among those who already give, only 19 percent will continue giving.

The answer: Make genuine connections with those donors and recognize them as potential advocates, ambassadors, and collaborators, not just financial donors.

Fine explains how to do that, including using artificial intelligence to make those interactions more personal — as counterintuitive as that may seem.

It works, she says, when “technology does what it does best — looks for patterns and makes predictions based on a lot of data — and people do what we do best — build relationships, solve problems, create communities.”

Other highlights from this week:

Even in the toughest times, grant makers are usually insulated from the threats nonprofits face, writes Lisa Pilar Cowan in an opinion column. But not now. “Today, in addition to the threats facing grantees, those of us working at foundations feel exposed and vulnerable,” she writes. She has a long way to go to shed her “chicken feathers,” she says, but she takes inspiration from other foundation leaders who have stepped up and taken bold actions, despite the risks.

“In this moment,” she writes, “I appreciate colleagues publicly addressing the precarious time we’re in and reminding us of their values and mission.”

In 25 years of tracking the Philanthropy 50 — our list of the country’s biggest donors — wealth in America has seen profound changes, write Maria Di Mento and Jim Rendon. They look back at a quarter century of the Philanthropy 50, tracing its origins to Ted Turner, who proposed ranking people not by their wealth but by their philanthropy.

Since then, giving has become more politicized, the most popular causes have shifted, trust-based philanthropy has grown in popularity, and donors now use a wider variety of giving vehicles.

MacKenzie Scott has made a foray into impact investing, putting an undisclosed amount of her fortune into companies and funds that aim to make societal and environmental improvements, such as reducing wealth disparities and providing more people with homes, reports Alex Daniels. As usual, Scott didn’t provide details, but Alex talked to impact investment experts about the move, what it will mean for her giving decades from now, how long it will take for those investments to make a difference, and more.

— Marilyn Dickey, Senior Editor, Copy

A North Dakota jury has ordered Greenpeace to pay more than $660 million to a Texas-based pipeline company over its role in the Dakota Access pipeline protests in 2016 and 2017. The company, Energy Transfer, said Greenpeace’s actions had caused it financial and reputational damage, while the environmental group said it joined the protests at the invitation of the Indigenous people who led it. Greenpeace called the case an attempt to stifle free speech and said it would appeal. (New York Times)

A jury’s mammoth award this week to an oil pipeline company suing Greenpeace is part of a barrage of blows against environmentalists since Donald Trump took office in January. The Environmental Protection Agency, which faces deep cuts, has rolled back regulations and tried to claw back funds for green projects awarded by the Biden administration. In addition, fossil fuel projects that were delayed or rejected have been fast-tracked. One legal scholar said the administration and its allies in the energy industry sense an “opportunity for revenge.” (Wall Street Journal — subscription)

Even as some environmental groups regain access to millions of federal dollars that the Trump administration had frozen, they are bracing for a wave of probes and prosecutions. The new administration alleges that recipients of the Biden-era Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, which it has canceled, defrauded the government. Some groups have reportedly been ordered to hand over their correspondence with staff from the Environmental Protection Agency, records of “transactions related to their programs, and their organizations’ articles of incorporation and policies.” (Floodlight)

Elite universities’ deep-pocketed patrons have stayed largely silent as the Trump administration strips away the schools’ federal funding and targets students demonstrating in support of Gaza. Some, such as Harvard mega-donor Bill Ackman, have rather welcomed the strong-arm tactics. “In the current environment, the grievances of those donors — against diversity initiatives and unruly agitators — stand in precise alignment with the agenda in Washington,” writes the New York Times. Michael Roth, president of Wesleyan University, said universities have isolated themselves by ignoring wide swathes of the public, including conservative and religious groups. (New York Times)

The Trump administration has asked nonprofits and local governments in Texas that receive federal grants to provide the names and addresses of migrants they have aided. A letter from the Federal Emergency Management Agency suggests the organizations are suspected of violating human-smuggling laws, echoing an allegation that Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has leveled against them. Paxton’s various lawsuits have met repeated setbacks but are still working their way through the courts. Most of the counties and nonprofits targeted could not be reached for comment, but the executive director of one shelter said he no longer has the federal funds to pay staff to fill out the requested paperwork. (Texas Tribune)

A small civil rights nonprofit in Boston has become a key player in litigation to rein in the Trump administration. Lawyers for Civil Rights, a local affiliate of the national group Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, is suing over Trump policies on birthright citizenship, sanctuary cities, and the temporary protected status program for immigrants. It has already scored early victories, including a temporary injunction against Trump’s effort to narrow birthright citizenship, but Trump ally and attorney John Eastman said that case could backfire on the group, when it inevitably reaches the Supreme Court. (Bloomberg Law)

The brother of a deceased major donor to the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute has filed a complaint against an oncologist there that highlights the fuzzy line between doctor-patient relationships, on the one hand, and donor care and feeding, on the other. Alain Cohen’s late brother, Marc, suffered from multiple myeloma and, as a major donor to the institute, had ready access to Kenneth C. Anderson, a renowned specialist in the disease. After Marc Cohen’s death from Covid complications in 2022, Anderson said Marc Cohen had been not his patient, but his friend, frustrating his family’s attempts to obtain his medical records. The disagreement “illustrates the potential risks for institutions when star doctors give special off-the-books access to trustees, donors, and other VIPs — a not uncommon arrangement at prestigious academic medical centers.” (Boston Globe)

Catholic leaders in New York State are resisting efforts by survivors of clergy sexual abuse to get settlement payments from a nearly $4 billion, church-linked foundation. With almost all of the state’s dioceses in bankruptcy protection, lawyers representing thousands of victims are eyeing the assets of the Mother Cabrini Foundation, which makes grants to nonprofits and was formed after the sale of the church’s Fidelis Care health insurer in 2018. Church leaders say the foundation is separate from the dioceses, but some survivors say the sale of Fidelis and establishment of the foundation was a pre-emptive effort to shield church assets from what would be a flood of abuse claims. (Buffalo News)

The leader of an anti-hunger nonprofit in Minnesota has been convicted of running a scheme to defraud the federal government of $240 million in Covid-era relief funds. Aimee Bock’s Feeding Our Future nonprofit was supposed to oversee other groups providing meals to children when schools were shut down. Instead, prosecutors argued, she conspired with those groups as they submitted wildly inflated accounts of their work and spending. Her cut of the funds amounted to $18 million, prosecutors said. Bock maintains her innocence. (New York Times)

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