In recent years, liberal philanthropy has poured billions into fighting right-wing populism, promoting civic engagement and funding progressive causes. Yet authoritarianism is gaining strength, working-class voters are drifting rightward, and the public’s trust in democratic institutions continues to erode. Why? Because liberal philanthropy is a product of the very capitalist system that fuels inequality and breeds reaction — and it is structurally incapable of challenging the roots of that system.
Liberal philanthropy is not just ineffective — it is fundamentally antidemocratic. It enables the ultra-wealthy to shape public life through unaccountable private power. Foundations are governed by donors, not communities. Their priorities reflect elite interests, not popular mandates. No matter how well intentioned, an institution that concentrates decision-making in the hands of the wealthy cannot serve the working-class.
I work in legal services, funded in part by the very philanthropy I critique. I’ve seen firsthand how funders shape priorities, dilute radical visions and reward compliance over confrontation. As a union organizer, I’ve also watched how working-class demands are sidelined when they threaten to disrupt the institutional comfort of funders or their grantees.
This contradiction plays out across every major arena of liberal philanthropy’s work.
Liberal foundations routinely sidestep economic justice. While they may support causes that help people function under and around capitalism, like education, workforce development or health services, they rarely fund efforts that challenge capitalism itself — like labor organizing, wealth redistribution or campaigns that confront corporate power. Their wealth, in the form of carefully curated endowments invested in the markets, depends on the economic status quo. To threaten it would be to threaten their own existence.
Elite funders have embraced a version of social justice that prioritizes the appearance of representation and symbolic inclusion within existing institutions. But actual justice — especially racial and gender justice — requires material redistribution: housing, decarceration, jobs, public infrastructure, healthcare, labor rights. By cleaving the cultural from the material, philanthropy produces initiatives that are narrow, elite-centered, and ultimately hollow.
Foundations love direct services — housing aid, food distribution, legal support — because they are politically safe. These programs meet real needs, but they leave the causes of those needs untouched. They don’t redistribute power. They don’t build conflict with elites. Instead, they allow philanthropy to pose as a benevolent savior without confronting the structures that made its charity necessary.
Even when foundations fund advocacy, they often do so in ways that dampen its radical edge. Short grant cycles, compliance requirements and an emphasis on metrics can turn bold campaigns into cautious service delivery. Groups learn to self-police — to stay fundable rather than stay accountable to their base. This isn’t accidental. It’s how elite institutions manage dissent: by absorbing it, professionalizing it and rendering it nonthreatening.
Just as important as how foundations fund advocacy is what they choose to fund. Most support is funneled toward civic engagement, policy tinkering or awareness campaigns that operate comfortably within the two-party system. Rarely do foundations support deep base-building efforts aimed at cultivating durable, independent political power. That kind of organizing, rooted in class struggle and community accountability, threatens the economic and political order funders ultimately rely on and benefit from.
Some in the sector have begun to wrestle with this contradiction. In a March article for Inside Philanthropy, David Callahan — founder and editor-in-chief of the publication — acknowledged that “foundations and major donors are creatures of capitalism. Their wealth comes from business success, and it’s no surprise that funders — consciously or subconsciously — aren’t much interested in challenging the system that spawned them.”
As Callahan noted in his piece, it reflected weeks of interviews with foundation CEOs, leaders of grantmaking intermediaries, and heads of key organizing and advocacy groups — many of whom admitted to strategic missteps, from poor messaging to neglecting economic concerns.
But the problem isn’t just a series of misjudgments. It’s that even smart, well-resourced people are operating within a framework that refuses to question the economic order. Callahan, like many others, ultimately treats philanthropy’s shortcomings as technocratic mistakes. But this obscures a deeper truth. The problem isn’t just bad execution; it’s that liberal philanthropy exists to stabilize capitalism, not to democratize power. Reforms may adjust the margins, but they won’t — and can’t — challenge the concentration of wealth and decision-making at the system’s core. Until the sector reckons with its foundational design — its insulation from democratic control and its allegiance to elite wealth — even the best reforms will fall short.
What we need instead is independent power: movements rooted in communities, accountable to working-class people, and free from the constraints of donor logic. That means building unions, tenant organizations and grassroots groups that don’t require permission from foundations to act boldly. That means organizations that are funded by dues, not donations — led by their members, not their boards. These groups don’t just advocate — they organize. They build collective discipline, escalate conflict and win material gains that shift the balance of power. It means investing in institutions that challenge the economic order rather than ask it for help.
If funders were truly serious about building democracy, they would give up control — turning over board seats, endowments and decision-making power to working-class communities. Not community advisory boards, but actual governance. Not symbolic gestures, but real structural transfer of power.
But of course, foundation boards will never surrender control — not until working-class communities force them.
Navruz Baum is a legal services worker and union organizer in New York City.
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