When We Stand Together…

The last six months have been devastating for these United States. The government has kidnapped students, placing them in detention in states hundreds of miles away from their loved ones and schools. The government has openly questioned long-standing and hard-fought norms: the freedom of speech, the right to legal representation, and citizenship as a right of those of us born here. The government has handed over our most sacred information and resources to billionaires who became that way because the government invested in them and subsidized their fortunes. Now these same people want to pull up the ladder behind them, guaranteeing that nobody else can benefit from a government that supports its people.

I’ve been proud of my sector, philanthropy. We’ve approached this crisis front-footed and full-throated in our commitment to protect the freedom to give. It’s been a powerful testament that hundreds of my peers preemptively coordinated and called out our freedom to give, freedom of speech, and freedom to serve communities.

As we enter this next moment, when the boundaries that were once fixed are challenged not by proclamation or executive order, but through the allocation of our tax dollars, we have an opportunity to show that when we are part of movements that protect the most vulnerable among us, we protect ourselves. It is an invitation to remember that our government is not a natural representation of our best selves. Let’s be honest: The best parts of our government are a product of people, overwhelming the poorest and least powerful people, organizing against greed, exploitation, and exclusion. Free public education, Medicaid, and protection from racism and sexism are evidence of what government looks like when movements win for our most treasured resource: our people.

Our commitment to trust, discipline, and love is the best medicine for this moment. We need to transform spaces of dread into spaces where we can join together in solidarity to dream...

As we plan and resource efforts that focus on shielding our institutions from the upcoming budget reconciliation, I hope we remember this budget reconciliation fight is not simply an attack on philanthropy or the nonprofit sector. It is not simply a way to poke a thumb in our eye because we’ve supported community-based organizations that open their doors to all of us, community services providers that make housing and healthcare more affordable, and student groups that come together to fight genocide.

The current fight about our resources cannot be fought on their terms or with their words. Above and beyond increasing the tax rate on foundations, this budget reconciliation includes:

• Stripping $290 BILLION from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, or, as it’s commonly called, “food stamps”), the largest cut in this program since its inception. SNAP provides millions of poor people with extra money to buy food to sustain their families. It is a lifeline to farmers and local businesses that provide this food. It is one way that our poor kids get fed at school.
• Cutting $715 BILLION from Medicaid, leaving millions of people uninsured and unable able access or afford critical health services. The forced labor requirements of this proposal alone create conditions where eligible recipients are forced off Medicaid or forced to make impossible choices between exploitation and care.

And let’s say these two lifesaving provisions are not front of mind for you or seem ancillary to your mission. There is this:

• The budget reconciliation includes a provision that gives the Executive Branch unprecedented power to strip nonprofits of their status without verification, an investigation, or due process. This administration has not signaled, but shouted its commitment to consolidate political power in the hands of billionaires, challenge hard-fought fundamental rights, and drastically alter those institutions that have long been the scaffolding of civil society in this nation, like nonprofit organizations. This would be a death nail to nonprofit organizations that educate community members about their rights, bring people together to demand dignity, and ensure we all understand that our government should protect and serve all of us, not just the most powerful.

There are a million metaphors describing the role of leaders at this moment; the most difficult for me to accept is the “oxygen mask guidance” used by airlines: protect yourself before you protect others. Philanthropy must do something different. Protect the most vulnerable among us who are being kidnapped, exploited, and starved by this administration. Come together with healthcare providers and labor unions fighting to protect Medicaid, food banks, and public schools working to protect SNAP, and legal service providers, like CUNY’s Creating Law Enforcement Accountability & Responsibility, working to limit this administration’s overreach.

Our resolve to unite in this fight is the best antidote to these attacks. Our commitment to trust, discipline, and love is the best medicine for this moment. We need to transform spaces of dread into spaces where we can join together in solidarity to dream, build, and attend to the preservation and celebration of all life.