As George Orwell wrote in 1946, “to see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle.”
Much more recently, Inside Philanthropy founder and Editor-in-Chief David Callahan discussed the problem of philanthropic funders who, entrenched in their view of themselves as “nonpartisan pragmatists who work at a remove from politics,” have consistently failed to call out the fact that the elephant in our current political living room is, at least metaphorically, an elephant. Or, as Callahan put it, “the authoritarian turn of the Republican Party” is “a development that overshadows all others.”
April’s “Public Statement From Philanthropy,” now signed by more than 700 foundations and related organizations, certainly follows the “don’t mention the elephant” model of what passes for today’s elite resistance discourse. “[A]s charitable giving institutions,” the statement says, “we are united behind our First Amendment right to give as an expression of our own distinct values.” While that statement may certainly seem incendiary to far-right ideologues, most Americans would find it as controversial as coming out in favor of baseball and apple pie.
Now, two organizations with sizable reach in the sector — though far fewer resources than many of the April statement’s signatories — have launched campaigns to hold up the vitally important work that nonprofits do. As with the April statement, neither the Council on Foundations (which also hosts the sign-on statement) nor the National Council of Nonprofits are calling out the elephant. Instead, both campaigns are designed to educate the public about the essential work of nonprofits and philanthropy’s role in making that work happen.
The National Council of Nonprofits’ “Nonprofits Get It Done” campaign seeks to “remind the public, and our elected leaders, that nonprofits are essential partners in creating stronger communities” during a time when they have come “under fire in Washington’s latest political fight.” The letter-writing call-to-action campaign urges nonprofit workers and their supporters to contact their congresspeople and provides a written template that can be sent digitally through the council.
“As Congress and the administration weigh changes to nonprofits’ tax-exempt status, federal funding, and regulatory frameworks, I am counting on you to be a voice for nonprofits, both local and national,” the sample letter says. “Policies that hamper their ability to operate effectively, raise funds or serve our communities undermine the civil society that makes our nation strong.”
Everyone with even a passing knowledge of current events knows that the wave of attacks against nonprofits is coming from a single political party. But instead of directly addressing that fact, the Council of Nonprofits has chosen to uplift the vital role that nonprofits play in communities across the U.S. Said the organization’s President and CEO Diane Yentel: “Our campaigns aim to highlight this impact and help elected leaders understand the value nonprofits bring, regardless of political affiliation. We engage on policies, not politics, and advocate for policies that strengthen the sector.”
On the funder side of the equation, in mid-June, the Council on Foundations announced the launch of the “Giving is Here for Good” campaign to “showcase how philanthropy and nonprofits are uniting to defend the sector’s ability to operate freely and remain nonpartisan.” CoF funded the campaign, which includes paid advertising and a social media and digital promotion toolkit. The council cites some impressive statistics for this campaign; when the organization contacted Inside Philanthropy earlier this month, the effort had garnered more than 31 million total impressions and 81,000 clicks. Funders including the Bush Foundation, the Black Hills Area Community Foundation and the Heinz Endowments have participated by sharing the campaign’s materials.
The targeted nature of the two campaigns is obvious at a glance. Nonprofits Get It Done, for example, stresses the fact that nonprofits work in every kind of community — not just urban areas — and specifically cites services that even the reddest of voters would approve of, including support for veterans’ families in Texas and the 5.9 billion meals supported by the Feeding America Network in 2024. Giving is Here for Good likewise mentions work done by religious organizations, local food pantries and firefighters’ organizations. While all these efforts are the kinds of services valued by both red and blue households, it doesn’t hurt that they might carry special appeal for red-state politicians.
There are, of course, legitimate legal and strategic reasons for the constraints both organizations have placed on their campaigns. In a conversation with Inside Philanthropy, CoF Director of Communications Brandon Cox pointed to a 2023 study by the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy in which only 5.4% of survey respondents said that they or anyone in their immediate family had received services from a charitable organization in the past year. “Considering the many ways people engage with nonprofits in daily life,” Lilly said in its announcement of the study, “from education, disaster relief and religious services to amateur athletics, civic beautification or the arts, this suggests many Americans may not recognize that these and other public services are provided by nonprofits.”
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Cox also pointed out the constraints that tax law and IRS regulations place on the sector’s ability to engage in political speech — constraints that are worth taking seriously given the federal administration’s extreme zeal to go after Trump’s perceived enemies, but have also been overemphasized in their extent, time and again, by risk-averse funders.
“Our campaign isn’t about downplaying threats — those are real, and we take them seriously,” Cox said. “But the goal of our storytelling campaign is to raise awareness of the essential role the charitable sector plays in local communities every day even when there isn’t an immediate political threat. … That lack of awareness makes nonprofits more vulnerable when threats arise. This campaign is designed to address that gap — spotlighting the everyday impact of the sector so that when challenges come, the public better understands what’s at stake.”
To its credit, in addition to its awareness campaign, the Council on Foundations not only hosts the April statement by foundations, it also continues to stand by its commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion. Those are outspoken positions given the council’s position as a spokesorganization for a wide array of funders with varying ideological perspectives.
And in a country where so many are attempting to undermine trust in basic facts, simply asserting reality as both councils are doing can be seen as an act of resistance.
But without a dedicated, heavily funded and coordinated sector effort not just to acknowledge, but actively name the elephant endangering civil society, efforts to simply assert the facts about nonprofits and the giving world are akin to a lit match in Niagara Falls.
Correction (8/25/25): An earlier version of this article incorrectly identified Brandon Cox as director of communications at the National Council of Nonprofits. Cox is director of communications at the Council on Foundations.
