Don’t believe the hype
On bullies, fear, and where to send cash
I’ve been reading recent headlines with a familiar knot in my stomach—the targeting of the Open Society Foundations, the ominous political rhetoric, the chilling lurch toward vengeance.
It’s scary.
And it’s designed to be.
But I want to suggest that our most powerful response as funders isn’t to hold each other tightly and retreat. It’s to keep calm and fund on—radically and unflinchingly directing our attention and, more importantly, our resources, to the communities facing the brunt of this authoritarian administration.
Why Keep Calm
Let me invoke a little history. On the eve of World War II, the British government printed millions of posters with a simple message: Keep Calm and Carry On. They were meant to be deployed across the UK in the event of an aerial raid by the fascist forces of Mussolini and Hitler.
The goal of the “Keep Calm” campaign wasn’t to ignore the threat of fascism but to inoculate people against panic, which authoritarians all too often exploit to consolidate power. The poster was designed to help people reorient toward everyday resistance—focusing on what they had the power to do despite deadly harm.
We in philanthropy might do well to adopt that spirit today.
Because while our sector may be feeling the heat of threatening words, reacting from a place of fear will ultimately make our work less impactful than responding from a clear commitment to show up in solidarity with working-class communities who are already struggling to survive.
Reacting in fear, our sector is convening urgent calls, rushing to attorneys for advice, and fretting about our endowments. I, along with my peers in philanthropy, have been rolling out statements of solidarity with other foundations and nonprofits. All that serves a purpose: Unity is powerful, and it matters.
But our actions are taking place while the communities we exist to serve are facing down militarized raids and devastating consequences of hundreds of billions of dollars being ripped from the social safety net.
Just last week, we saw federal agents deployed to capture and dehumanize residents—citizens and noncitizens alike—in a Chicago South Side neighborhood. This state violence is layered on top of the already devastating economic conditions in communities all across our country.
Comparing the economic and state terror that communities are facing to how our sector is—and is not—responding, I can’t help but feel that our collective approach as philanthropists is coming up short.
As a sector, we must grow beyond our too-common myopic self-inflated focus.
We have more to give.
We can make bolder moves.
We must.
Why Fund On
It’s been interesting to watch the reaction of former FBI director James Comey, who is public enemy No. 1 for this administration. Comey isn’t someone I agree with on much. But his response to an indictment read as a rather unbothered “See you in court.”
What if we, as funders, were to echo a similar response to the B-list bullies making targets of philanthropy?
This is not to ignore the real dangers of democratic erosion, which Binaifer Nowrojee of Open Society Foundations has pointed out, saying, “This is about the United States slowly losing its democracy bit by bit in ways that we’ve seen elsewhere in the world.”
The threat we face, as a country, is real and urgent. But the tactics against the philanthropic sector—for the time being at least—seem to be a distraction.
They are designed to make us retreat, to look inward and protect our own assets, while the real battle to protect communities and build a better tomorrow is being waged in the streets of Chicago, at the food banks facing shutdown, and in the emergency rooms about to be overwhelmed by defunded healthcare.
Or, maybe I’m wrong and investigations will lead to frozen assets and criminal charges for philanthropists.
If our sector’s worst-case scenario unfolds, then, as I told the SF Chronicle, the most powerful rebuke we have is to quickly move massive, unprecedented amounts of money into community organizations.
Today.
This immediate funding focus is not separate from a long-term vision for a better world. It is a foundation for it. If we’re worried only about Kash Patel and his “enemies list,” we’ve taken our eyes off the prize.
Both the short-term arc of collective survival and the long-term arc of justice demand our full attention.
Foundations have the capacity, the resources, and the moral imperative to be a steadying force. We can’t afford to get distracted by the bullies when we can be defined by an unwavering solidarity with the communities we serve.
With calm,
G
Resources + Follow Up
In my last post, I shared about an Alliance for Justice report that tracked the rise of far-right donors fueling a decades-long plan to consolidate power. There are also some outstanding reports put out by the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, which you can find in their resource library.
Ever heard of Capital Research Center, the think tank with the ear of the White House, putting progressive funders on a watch list? Read Inside Philanthropy Connie Matthiessen’s “The Philanthropy-Backed Think Tank Behind Trump’s Soros Investigation.”
In “Philanthropy’s Moment: Moving Money Like It’s Our Only Job,” Dr. Carmen Rojas, president and CEO of Marguerite Casey Foundation, outlines four insights the foundation gained from tapping its endowment to increase its giving by five times its average annual amount.
Keep calm and carry on (funding) is great advice. Vision, values and solidarity.