Like many readers of this blog, my inbox in recent months has been filled with a slew of analyses assessing what a second Trump administration means for philanthropy, both in the US and globally. The consensus takes were relatively straightforward: less US international development assistance should generate a need for greater private philanthropy to “fill the gap,” especially in key sectors such as climate change where US government engagement will pull back significantly. Ibid diversity and inclusion efforts, immigration, and “democracy strengthening” work in the US during the next four years. The first weeks of the new administration have borne these theories out with even more intensity than most had predicted.
What I find interesting about the “gap filling” argument is that it reveals surprising complexity in the traditionally implicit values neutral arguments about philanthropy’s role in politics. In lay terms: the “gaps” highlighted by many in philanthropy and social change work right now are only gaps if you believe those are the “right” issues for priority investment, whether by government, private donors, and even the corporate sector.
To take a practical (and admittedly overly simplified) example: virtually no attention has been paid by private philanthropy in recent decades to the growing and real challenges posed by Chinese influence on Africa’s development trajectory, on leading digital platforms, and on the geopolitical stage. That “gap” will now be filled by the incoming administration, but not because it is at all new. It simply reflects an ideology that places primacy on that issue relative to many others (climate change, immigration, democracy). Agree or disagree with that prioritization, but it’s defensible.
Where this leaves some private philanthropies in the coming years is a tricky spot. First, demands for gap-fill funding from grantees in now-deprioritized sectors have predictably spiked – virtually every nonprofit organization I’ve spoken to in recent weeks is making the rounds to private donors pleading for gap-fill grants. But at the same time, many grantors that have over indexed towards those now-deprioritized sectors — think about the foundations that have gone all in on justice and equity since 2020 — find themselves in a bit of the political wilderness. While there is important work to be done supporting high impact organizations continuing to toil in those crucial trenches, these donors’ ability to support more ambitious “movement building” or systems change efforts at the local and national levels is very much hamstrung. A painful example of this is work around diversity, equity, and inclusion which is now literally banned for any organization that touches a Federal grant or contract dollar. It’s challenging to build coalitions for change with one arm tied behind your back.
What to do, then, for the donor who feels adrift in this first week of a new administration? There are useful lessons to be gleaned from the past eight years (but certainly no silver bullets). First, making sustained progress on hard, complicated social challenges means building durable coalitions that are resilient to changes in the political wind. In many of the “gap” sectors, this simply wasn’t accomplished sufficiently. While worldview and ideology explain some of that, I believe the more fundamental challenge stems from weaknesses in “professional” philanthropy’s connection to the communities it espouses to support, given credence to criticisms of elitism and being out of touch. As HistPhil’s Benjamin Soskis wrote so powerfully recently (citing the work of Harvard political scientist Theda Skocpol), “the shift from a civic culture dominated by broad-based, cross-class, federated membership organizations, requiring and encouraging active participation, to one dominated by large, professionally managed national organizations, for whom membership is largely defined by the act of making a financial donation…” is the source of the “NGO industrial complex” problem that inhibits more inclusive and resilient coalition building.
Second, delivering results that are measurable at the kitchen table (and in the board room) matter for building broad-based durable coalitions that can withstand changes in political administrations. Preaching at communities to embrace the “right thing” when it’s unclear how that improves the price they pay for groceries, their incomes, or their kids’ education is a recipe for disappointment. For all the incredibly “right” reasons to embrace diversity and inclusion inside of companies, for example, the talking point I hear most often that sways C-suite decision makers is that it’s “good for business.” A similar reality exists in the climate change world, where insurance companies have been at the forefront of the science and mitigation efforts for decades, long before many current advocates leapt into the fray. Donors need better “instrumental” arguments to deploy alongside the “intrinsic” arguments if they’re interested in shoring up these newly stressed “gap” sectors in the years to come.
Finally, it’s still entirely defensible and laudable to say that some priorities are simply values-based and anchored more to ethics than any return on investment calculation. Despite the need to build more durable, broad coalitions for change, sometimes even the biggest possible tent can’t and shouldn’t include anyone. This is (somewhat ironically) one strategic advantage private donors have relative to governments and businesses: they don’t have to answer to anyone but themselves and don’t need to bend to voter or shareholder pressure. Embracing that autonomy in situations where governments and companies can’t lead — but should — has been where some of philanthropy’s most impactful moments have occurred historically (support for the Civil Rights Movement comes to mind). I suspect we’ll see more of them in the coming years.
Whether philanthropy should attempt to fill 2025’s newly created social sector gaps comes down to both alignment and values questions for donors. There are practical considerations to be wrestled with, not least of which is the reality that all the private philanthropy dollars in the world don’t add up to even a fraction of public spending. But at the same time, ensuring some of the work can continue will be deemed vital to donors committed to the long game. When political winds shift again — and they always do — organizations will need to be able to press ahead.