{"id":226400,"date":"2025-10-07T10:15:52","date_gmt":"2025-10-07T17:15:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.insidephilanthropy.com\/?p=226400"},"modified":"2025-10-08T08:52:12","modified_gmt":"2025-10-08T15:52:12","slug":"trolls-are-coming-for-nonprofits-and-funders-heres-what-to-know-and-what-to-do-about-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.insidephilanthropy.com\/home\/trolls-are-coming-for-nonprofits-and-funders-heres-what-to-know-and-what-to-do-about-it","title":{"rendered":"Trolls Are Coming for Nonprofits and Funders. Here\u2019s What to Know and What to Do About It"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n

Doxxing. Harassment. Death threats. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The internet has never been a completely safe place, but in the charged climate of the past several years, online platforms have increasingly become a forum for campaigns that wreak havoc on people\u2019s lives. Just ask anyone who has been on the receiving end of the threats unleashed by one of President Donald Trump\u2019s tweets<\/a> or other social media posts.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Online threats against nonprofits and funders aren\u2019t a new phenomenon. But since the Trump administration\u2019s attacks on the sector beginning in January \u2014 and particularly since the violent killing of right-wing provocateur Charlie Kirk last month \u2014 those threats have become more widespread. Fortunately, there are things that private foundations, individual large donors, and nonprofits can do to protect themselves and each other. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Compiling this report was made difficult because so few people were willing to speak unless the conversation was off the record, and others didn\u2019t feel free to talk at all. To be fair, this makes it difficult to provide an accurate account of whether actual targeting or fear of being a victim is the bigger issue. But between the conversations I did have, as well as the caliber and range of people who would speak only off the record, it feels reasonable to believe that Solidaire Network Executive Director Rajasvini Bhansali was correct when she told me: \u201cEverything you\u2019ve heard [about right-wing threats], times it by 100,\u201d particularly in the case of nonprofits.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Funders are also feeling the heat. \u201cThere have been efforts to attack progressive funders for a long time, but there has been this major escalation in the last few weeks\u201d since the Kirk killing, Bhansali said. That\u2019s hardly surprising given that the vice president has specifically cited two of the country\u2019s top foundations<\/a> as targets, and Stephen Miller, Trump\u2019s deputy chief of staff, has vowed that the administration will find those he called \u201cdomestic terrorists\u201d and \u201ctake away your money, take away your power,\u201d regardless of whether or not those people and institutions have broken any laws<\/a>. Miller didn\u2019t specifically cite nonprofits or private philanthropy during that interview, but it\u2019s hard to imagine that the philanthrosphere is immune from his threats against \u201cThe Democrat [sic] Party, its pundits, its allies.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nor are the attacks all coming from the apocryphal small group of right-wing computer geeks living in their parents\u2019 basements, or coming only from online communications. There are phone calls and letters, too. \u201cThese are full-on, coordinated attacks,\u201d one foundation leader said. \u201cIt\u2019s not a handful of bad actors.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Individuals and organizations with millions or billions of dollars may have more resources to deal with the rising threats than their nonprofit grantees, but they\u2019re not immune. An IT professional whose work involves helping others prevent and respond to doxxing also said that, in their experience, the cyber attacks don\u2019t seem random; instead, they\u2019re \u201ccoordinated and targeting key figures during key events.\u201d According to this source, they and their peers have seen doxxing surges that \u201ctarget groups actively organizing protests, timed around those events\u201d \u2014 for example, when Roe<\/em> was overturned, and during the pro-Palestinian campus protests. \u201cSome of this is from the federal level, some is from state leaders or neighborhood-level activists,\u201d they said.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many Inside Philanthropy writers have called on funders and donors to be more forthright and courageous during these times. I\u2019ve certainly done so on multiple occasions; so has our founder and Editor-in-Chief David Callahan. At the same time, it would be callous not to empathize with the safety fears of foundations and individual donors, particularly since \u201cthe number of far-right attacks continues to outpace<\/a> all other types of domestic terrorism and violent extremism,\u201d according to a 2024 study of National Institute of Justice Data that the Trump administration removed<\/a> from the Justice Department\u2019s website last month.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Related Inside Philanthropy Resources:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Subscribers Only<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n