Philanthropy This Week

Nick Wass/AP

Good morning.

In just four months as the CEO of the National Council of Nonprofits, Diane Yentel has established herself as a forceful defender of nonprofits from the threats of the Trump administration, reports Eden Stiffman.

A longtime coalition builder and shrewd communicator, Yentel comes across as fiery in her online posts but a calm presence in person. She doesn’t back down from a fight but also doesn’t seek one out. While many in the nonprofit world are shrinking from anything that would attract attention to them, Yentel warns against silence in the face of attacks — and against infighting.

The council has joined two lawsuits under her leadership, both of which have resulted in rulings favorable to nonprofits.

“I can’t think of another moment in my career or in my lifetime where the threats to the entire sector have been so existential, so systemic, and so immediate,” she said. “We’ll either end the year somewhere on a spectrum of harm — from somewhat harmed to really potentially decimated — or we’ll end it strengthened by responding in this moment.”

The barrage of actions by the Trump administration in its first 100 days has indeed transformed and weakened the nonprofit sector, reports Alex Daniels in another article. Targeting diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, freezing federal grants, and gutting foreign aid have left nonprofit leaders “shell-shocked,” Ann Mei Chang, chief executive of Candid, told Alex.

Leslie Lenkowsky, a professor emeritus at Indiana University, agrees the actions have inflicted long-term damage but says they’ve also forced debate on some contentious issues and may result in more stable policies. And other branches of government are now weighing in.

“This has been like act one of a play with the president and his associates in the spotlight at center stage,” he told Alex. “But now Congress is getting into the act.”

Among the nonprofits in Trump’s crosshairs is Harvard University, an elite institution that has accomplished “remarkable feats — from mapping the genome to developing artificial intelligence,” writes Eboo Patel in an opinion column. But that elite image is a problem, he writes. As the administration threatens Harvard’s tax-exempt status and its academic freedom, “much of the American public is openly cheering the regime in its effort to suffocate the nation’s oldest and most storied university,” he writes.

Patel supports Harvard and says many nonprofits benefit from its work. But, he adds, much of the public is openly hostile to such institutions because “they inherently confer massive advantages on their members, reject the vast majority of people who want to join, and maintain a sense of mystery about their operations.”

And that is a warning sign for other nonprofits that show disdain for ordinary people while enjoying a privileged status.

“Some of the nation’s most privileged campuses have also supported a victimhood culture that alienates most Americans,” he writes. “I spend a lot of time on elite campuses and am stunned by how often students complain about how their institution oppresses them even as they fail to notice the janitor sweeping the floor a few feet away.”

Other highlights from the week:

Donor-advised funds are growing in popularity as the minimum required to start one has dropped. According to one recent survey, giving from DAFs has surged, the gifts tend to be larger than other contributions, and DAF donor retention is greater, reports David Wheeler.

Yet many nonprofits are still not making DAFs a fundamental part of their fundraising strategy, in part because they don’t know who has a DAF and in part because they don’t know how to ask for DAF gifts. David outlines some tips from experts to remedy that situation — for example, simply asking all current and potential donors if they have DAFs.

Nonprofits reluctant to engage in lobbying often limit themselves unnecessarily, writes Roger Colinvaux, a law professor at Catholic University. The IRS does restrict charities from certain kinds of lobbying and politicking, but they can do more than many realize.

“Can tax-exempt nonprofits lobby Congress or the executive branch about administration policy?” he writes. “Can you write editorials, engage with and inform the public about issues of concern, support litigation, or organize peaceful, law-abiding protests? The answer to all these questions is yes.”

Colinvaux goes on to explain how to determine what is allowed. For example, most of the actions so far by the Trump administration have not been legislative so the lobbying rules don’t apply.

How can nonprofit CEOs get their boards to raise money? How can leaders bridge divides in the workplace and in their communities? Our new podcast series can help with those issues and more as Stacy Palmer, the Chronicle’s CEO, talks with leaders to learn innovative ways to motivate senior teams, manage intergenerational staff, and more.

— Marilyn Dickey, Senior Editor, Copy

The Trump administration is proposing dramatic cuts to safety-net programs in its draft budget for the coming fiscal year. Among the targets are “programs that support child care, health research, education, housing assistance, community development, and the elderly.” Funding for Head Start would be zeroed out, and the National Institutes of Health would see cuts to its efforts to fight chronic disease and epidemics. The budget proposal is expected to accompany another measure that would cut more than $9 billion of approved spending for the current fiscal year, including money that funds PBS and NPR. A spokeswoman for the Office of Management and Budget said in a statement that “no final funding decisions have been made.” (New York Times)

President Trump has signed an executive order seeking to cut off federal funds to NPR and the Public Broadcasting Service. The order instructs the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to stop providing federal funds to NPR and PBS, as well as grants to their local affiliates. The CPB sends most of its annual $535 million in federal funds to local stations, which make their own programs or buy programming from “services such as NPR and PBS.” The order, which accuses the services of progressive bias, could be subject to legal challenge. In a statement, an NPR spokesperson said, “NPR’s editorial practices and decision-making are independent and free from outside influence” and that it works with local nonprofit stations “to fill critical needs for news and information in America’s communities.” (Washington Post)

The current maelstrom engulfing nonprofits — funding cuts and ideological attacks from the Trump administration, amid falling donations — highlights how much nonprofits rely on government grants, but it could also bring to light how much the government relies on nonprofits to provide basic services. As the Trump administration targets programs that help the hungry, homeless, and other vulnerable groups, the cuts will provide “a very painful civics lesson in making visible what has been deeply invisible,” said Claire Dunning, an associate professor at the University of Maryland’s School of Public Policy. (Boston Globe)

The American Civil Liberties Union is suing the Trump administration on behalf of six early-childhood-education providers to halt the dismantling of Head Start. The suit argues that the administration cannot make cuts to the program without congressional approval. It also argues that an administration order to abandon diversity, equity, and inclusion practices is “unconstitutionally vague” and is counter to its mission to meet the “diverse needs” of low-income families “dictated by the Head Start Act” of 1965. The Trump administration has temporarily frozen the program’s funding and laid off federal Head Start workers, and a draft budget for next year defunds the program, which serves 800,000 families. (Los Angeles Times)

The Trump administration’s elimination of about $1 billion in federal aid to anti-hunger programs has hit rural areas particularly hard. Food banks and soup kitchens in Appalachia, which have fewer options for sourcing food than their urban counterparts, are scrambling with dwindling shipments of increasingly random items that do not add up to balanced meals. Meanwhile, farms that would have sold their produce to the federal government, for distribution to feeding programs, are facing a steep drop-off in revenue. (New York Times)

“We are going to be taking away Harvard’s Tax Exempt Status. It’s what they deserve!” That’s what President Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social on Friday. The threat comes amid a fight between the administration and the Ivy League school in which the White House froze billions of dollars in federal grants, saying it viewed the school’s protection of Jewish students during protests over the war in Gaza as inadequate. Harvard sued in response, charging that the administration threatened its academic independence. Tax law prohibits members of the administration from directly or indirectly asking the Internal Revenue Service to pull a nonprofit’s tax status. After Trump made similar comments earlier, the White House said an investigation into whether Harvard violated laws preventing nonprofits from political activity was already underway, and was separate from the president’s remarks. (Wall Street Journal — subscription)

The Gates Foundation is learning to navigate the newly hostile environment for foreign aid as it watches the Trump administration dismantle much of its international work. The $75 billion philanthropy has long avoided politics and is trying to find sympathetic ears in the White House. It fears threats to its tax-exempt status and paralyzing investigations while fielding calls to help replace the research and programs lost with the shutdown of the U.S. Agency for International Development and cuts at the United States’s premier research institutions. CEO Mark Suzman said priorities will remain vaccine research and distribution, and the fight against AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria. (New York Times)

Sen. Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican, has asked the Justice Department to probe a New York City nonprofit that has held pro-Palestinian demonstrations and exhibitions. Citing a 2023 New York Times investigation, Grassley says the People’s Forum appears to have ties to the Chinese Communist Party and “could be compelled” to register as an agent for a foreign government. The People’s Forum received money in 2017 from a tech entrepreneur who sold his company and moved to China. The Times article said the donor “works closely ‘with the Chinese government media machine” and has used shell companies to fund a network of nonprofits that allegedly parrot Chinese state propaganda. The organization’s executive director said it has never taken money from the Chinese government and said Grassley is trying to silence its advocacy work. (Hyperallergic)

A philanthropy-funded program in Los Angeles aims to help community college students stay in school while easing the area’s shortage of health-care workers. Funded with $3.1 million from the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation and $867,500 from the California Community Foundation, the pilot program gives $1,000 a month to 251 low-income students in health-related fields for a year. Experts at the University of Pennsylvania will examine the effort to see if it can help students stay in school. (Los Angeles Times)

The Gates Foundation is part of a new $500 million effort to improve care for mothers and newborns in sub-Saharan Africa. The Beginnings Fund “aims to save the lives of 300,000 mothers and newborn babies by 2030 and expand quality care for 34 million mothers and babies” by targeting the key reasons mothers and babies die. Others involved in the fund include the United Arab Emirates’s Mohamed Bin Zayed Foundation for Humanity, the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation, Delta Philanthropies, and the ELMA Foundation, all of whom will pool a separate $100 million for “direct investments in maternal and child health.” (Reuters)

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