A few weeks ago, which now feels like an eternity ago, Inside Philanthropy gave me the award for Philanthropy Critic of the Year, saying “Through his blog Nonprofit AF, he’s long advanced a critique of funders that is irreverent, hard hitting[,] and often cuttingly funny.” It’s nice to be recognized for my ramblings, even if IP didn’t even use the Oxford Comma in the recognition, which is rather hurtful.
Among the other awardees are two that stood out to me:
Highest Return on Investment: Donating to the Heritage Foundation: “We’ve long argued that public policy grantmaking offers the greatest leverage for funders. Exhibit A is Heritage’s long record of outsized influence, which is set to hit a new peak in a second Trump administration with Project 2025 or its equivalent.”
No Kidding Award: The Generosity Commission: “Debuted with much fanfare in 2021, the blue-ribbon commission set out to study the decline in ‘everyday’ donors and found that, well, yes, small-donor giving is down. There’s more in the commission’s hefty report, but was it worth all the rigamarole?”
While it irks me that the Heritage Foundation gets lauded and platformed, there is no denying how horrifyingly effective this funder has been. What we are seeing now with the destruction of democracy and the rise of fascism can be greatly attributed to the work of the Heritage Foundation and aligned right-wing funders. And it will only get worse, as we will find out when Project 2025, which we failed to stop, gets implemented in full and erodes our rights over the coming years, if not weeks.
Meanwhile, let’s talk about the Generosity Commission. This is a project to learn why, during a global pandemic, everyday people haven’t been giving as much to charity as they did before. This project cost a total of $3.8 million dollars. And after three years of research and wordsmithing, the first recommendation in the report for how to address the problem is this: “Increase the depth and breadth of data on giving and volunteering.”
I don’t mean to beat up on people and organizations who mean well, especially as several of the people who worked on this project are people I like and admire who have contributed to the field in various other ways. But this whole episode illustrates the stark contrast between how conservative funders and “progressive” funders operate.
Right-wing funders are ruthless and focused in their goals of shaping society according to their often-abhorrent values. Meanwhile, progressive-leaning funders are mired in toxic intellectualizing, where white papers, evaluation reports, summits, and endless research and pontification are seen as equal, if not superior, to taking meaningful and decisive action.
Maybe, just maybe, people have been decreasing in their giving and volunteering because they can barely survive under an oppressive system of capitalism run by oligarchs who couldn’t care less if they lived or died. And maybe they have been giving and volunteering less because, as everything burns to the ground, the few wealthy funders and institutions they hoped would help put out the fires decided it would be a great idea to continue doing things like spend $3.8 million dollars and three years to do a study on why they’re giving and volunteering less.
Read full article here.
