Philanthropy This Week

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Good morning.

The Trump administration’s war against diversity, equity, and inclusion programs has progressive legal experts questioning whether Trump’s efforts are lawful. In particular, they question his authority to examine what foundations are doing to support DEI and how nonprofits operate programs that focus on those who have historically been left out of philanthropic efforts, reports Alex Daniels.

Many organizations have been especially concerned about the White House’s executive order that said foundations with assets of $500 million or more could be scrutinized over their DEI work.

“These orders are written in many cases with a strategic ambiguity,” Scott Curran, a lawyer who served as general counsel of the Clinton Foundation, told Alex. “They are chaotic and overwhelming by design.”

Conservative groups counter that any attempt to treat people differently based on race are discriminatory.

“The laws that are in play here are remarkably straightforward,” Dan Morenoff, executive director of the right-leaning American Civil Rights Project, told Alex. “If the president’s instructing agencies to enforce them has a chilling effect on someone’s activity, then what it’s chilling is illegal activity that should be chilled.”

As the issue winds its way through the courts, both sides are heatedly debating just who is being discriminated against, progressives pointing to the 1964 Civil Rights Act and conservatives using an older civil rights statute, passed in 1866.

Meantime, foundations and nonprofits are taking different approaches in their response, some backing off their DEI efforts, others altering the language that describes their work but continuing their missions, and still others are deepening their commitment to DEI.

A coalition called the Racial Equity Advancement and Defense Initiative is advising nonprofit leaders not to overreact. “The way to approach this stuff is to really examine and interrogate it,” says E. Bomani Johnson of ABFE (formerly known as the Association of Black Foundation Executives), who says nonprofits should stand firm and suggests how they can continue to support DEI.

Meanwhile, spending cuts and other efforts by the Trump administration are upending 60 years of policy largely intended to help people of color and the poor, writes Stephanie Beasley in another piece.

Stephanie interviewed historian Claire Dunning, author of Nonprofit Neighborhoods: An Urban History of Inequality and the American State. President Lyndon Johnson’s 1964 war on poverty expanded federal grants to nonprofits to provide social services, which the current administration is now trying to dismantle.

Dunning explains how these grants came about and how other presidents through the years have used nonprofit funding to signal their priorities and preferences. “Black leaders, leaders of color, Latinx leaders, queer leaders have long known that grants are a tool of control,” Dunning said, “that what can be doled out can be extracted, that these are not relationships among equals, despite all of the talk about partnership.”

Other highlights from this week:

Social media has long been at the center of fundraisers’ efforts to engage donors. But more recently, they’ve been questioning that approach, as donors and others involved with nonprofits seem to prefer personal interactions, writes Morgan Teel, founder of Dance Waterloo. “Many nonprofits have been questioning whether these platforms truly nurture the kind of community we want to cultivate — or if they simply keep us in a loop of endless content creation, asking more and more of us while giving less in return.” Teel isn’t suggesting ditching social media altogether but offers suggestions on how to build stronger connections by balancing social media with other ways to reach out.

As baby boomers pass their wealth on to nonprofits and younger generations, fundraisers would do well to develop relationships with millennials and Gen Xers, writes Ben Gose in a piece in our April issue, posted online this week. Not only will they be inheriting much of that money but they will also influence how that money is allocated, both before and after their parents die.

— Marilyn Dickey, Senior Editor, Copy

Food banks across the country are facing about $1 billion worth of cuts in federal aid just as they deal with soaring demand. In New England, where some groups rely on federal programs for 10 percent to 30 percent of their total distributions, millions of meals are at stake due to the cuts. Meanwhile, as the organizations seek other sources of support, shipments of food that were already in the works are being canceled or sitting in limbo. (Boston Globe)

Nonprofits that help legal permanent residents become citizens have lost a major source of funding with the cancellation of a $22 million federal grant program. The Citizenship and Immigration Grant Program was terminated as part of a move to “restrict grant funding to sanctuary cities,” a department official said. Programs that “support, or have the potential to support, illegal immigration through funding illegal activities or support for illegal aliens are out of step with the President and [Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L.] Noem’s priorities …” the official said in a statement. But the CEO of a Catholic Charities chapter in California said the group’s clients “went through the immigration system legally, or else they wouldn’t qualify for this program or these funds.” The program has helped more than 350,000 immigrants become citizens since its founding in 2009, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. (Washington Post)

Rural communities in the West are being left on their own to deal with the effects of climate- and environment-related disasters as the Environmental Protection Agency slashes $1.5 billion worth of grants to nonprofits. Towns and villages along eroding coasts and rivers, or in deep mountain valleys, were slated to receive money to seal their houses from wildfire smoke, mitigate constant flooding, and build emergency hubs, among other projects. In a statement, an agency spokesperson said the EPA is reviewing the grants, but at least one nonprofit, which helps residents cope with wildfires, has had its grant terminated. An unnamed EPA official said it appeared reviewers had simply canceled grants whose applications included the words “equity” or “environmental justice.” (Washington Post)

The National Endowment for Humanities is headed for deep cuts, at the order of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency. As many as 70 percent to 80 percent of the agency’s roughly 180 employees could be fired, and all grants made under the Biden administration that have not been fully paid out could be canceled, staffers told the New York Times. The NEH, with a budget of $211 million last year, is a primary or sole funder of state humanities councils and supports cultural and scholarly projects around the country. A spokesman for the agency did not respond to a request for comment. In a statement, the National Humanities Alliance said, “DOGE is targeting a small federal agency that — with an annual appropriation that barely amounts to a rounding error in the U.S. budget — has a positive impact on every congressional district.” (New York Times)

As the Trump administration considers dissolving a key HIV and AIDS program run by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, local health agencies warn that the move could cost money and lives. The CEO of a nonprofit in California noted that lifetime treatment for a patient with HIV costs about $500,000, meaning that a few thousand new infections would cost more than the estimated $1.8 billion that gutting the division would save. In Alaska, more than one-third of people living with HIV do not have the resources they need to manage their health without the support of local agencies that, in turn, receive federal grants, said the director of the Alaskan AIDS Assistance Association. (Los Angeles Times and KTOO)

Federally funded services to older adults and people with disabilities, including senior centers and Meals on Wheels, could be cut as the agency that administers them is disbanded. Some programs run by the Administration for Community Living, which is part of the Department of Health and Human Services, will be eliminated, while others will be transferred to other agencies. Officials have not said which programs will survive. Elimination of the ACL is part of a major contraction of the department. The agency provided “more than 261 million meals to older adults, assistance such as respite care to more than 1.5 million family caregivers, and independent-living services to nearly 250,000 people with disabilities” in fiscal 2022, a former administrator said. (MarketWatch)

The Trump administration has frozen nearly $66 million in federal funds for 16 family-planning agencies, including nine Planned Parenthood affiliates. The move affects services from cancer screening to birth control and leaves seven states with no funding under the federal Title X family-planning program, which primarily serves people with low incomes. The Department of Health and Human Services said in a statement it was investigating whether the grantees violated federal measures, including an executive order barring services to people in the country illegally, although proof of citizenship is not required to receive care under Title X. Alexis McGill Johnson, president of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, said the freeze would mean “cancers go undetected, access to birth control is severely reduced, and the nation’s STI crisis worsens.” (Washington Post)

In arguments this week, the Supreme Court appeared poised to rule that a Catholic charity in Wisconsin is primarily a religious organization and therefore exempt from the state’s unemployment taxes. A chapter of Catholic Charities had sued the state over a determination that it operated essentially as a secular charity because it did not engage in specifically religious activity while providing services. Two courts in Wisconsin sided with the state, but some justices on the Supreme Court said the state’s decision seemed to require an implied test of religiosity, a notion that appeared to make them uncomfortable. (New York Times)

The Center for Public Integrity, a pioneer of nationwide, nonprofit investigative journalism, is shutting down after 36 years. The organization, which won a Pulitzer Prize in 2014, has endured friction among staff, managers, and board members. It has also struggled for much of its existence with dwindling budgets, ultimately cutting all of its staff in 2024. It is in talks with the nonprofit Project on Government Oversight to take over its archives. (Columbia Journalism Review)

Our ill-tempered times are leaving a mark on the Chautauqua Institution, a resort and cultural center in western New York State that for 150 years has embraced an ethos of discussion and decorum. The nonprofit is in sound financial shape, but some of its well-heeled, longtime visitors have raged against challenges ranging from lapses in upkeep to the administration’s perceived indifference to antisemitism and liberal bias in programming. They have vented their frustrations in “an almost daily drumbeat of blog posts” and used what one dissenter called “classic guerrilla tactics” in a campaign to push out president Michael Hill, who will leave Chautauqua in May. Hill, who will become president of Randolph-Macon College in Virginia, said the departure was his choice. (New York Times)

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