Across the past few months, we here at IP have been calling on funders to “fill the gaps” left by the administration’s draconian spending cuts. Many funders have indicated their general willingness to do that, admirably pledging to up their annual payouts. But these are, by and large, commitments in the abstract, and they stop far short of committing specific funding to cover a specific federal cut.
This is why the Mellon Foundation’s $15 million commitment in emergency funding to the Federation of State Humanities Councils to address the impact of rescinded federal support is so distinctive. Yes, the $15 million one-time infusion, which amounts to a rounding error given Mellon’s $7.9 billion endowment, will only offset a portion of the $65 million cuts to the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). Nor, at this point, is there any indication that other funders will provide supplemental support.
Nonetheless, the announcement is striking because Mellon, a bellwether humanities grantmaker, is one of the few major funders that has publicly drawn a direct line between two numbers — the amount of federal dollars not flowing to organizations (in this one case, $65 million) and the amount of emergency funding going out the door ($15 million) to partially close the gap. Also bearing in mind other outlier examples, like the Marguerite Casey Foundation’s recent $130 million commitment to “protect communities under political attack,” grantmakers who have been unable to mount a coherent nuts-and-bolts grantmaking response to the administration’s cuts now have an opportunity to emulate Mellon’s low-risk approach.
An overview of Mellon’s $15 million emergency funding commitment
Here’s a quick backstory that follows a familiarly distressing pattern. On March 31, the National Humanities Alliance, a humanities advocacy group, learned that the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) was targeting the NEH, the nation’s largest funder of the humanities, for cuts. The following day, the alliance posted an open letter calling on Congress “to ensure that this crucial government agency fulfills the mandate set by Congress.”
But on April 3, the NEH, on the heels of the DOGE review, canceled most of its grant programs and began placing staff on administrative leave.
Cue the Mellon Foundation. “At stake are both the operational integrity of organizations like museums, libraries, historical societies in every single state, as well as the mechanisms to participate in the cultural dynamism and exchange that is a fundamental part of American civic life,” said Mellon President Elizabeth Alexander in a statement announcing the $15 million emergency funding commitment. “While Mellon’s grantmaking will not cover the entirety of these cuts, we stand side by side with the 56 Humanities Councils across the United States and remain deeply committed to the work they lead on behalf of us all.”
Mellon will disburse $200,000 in unrestricted support to humanities councils in all 50 states and six jurisdictions. As Mellon’s press release notes, humanities councils provide community programming, educational activities and generate significant regional economic activity through book fairs, festivals and other events. Meanwhile, $2.8 million in funding will be earmarked as challenge grants of up to $50,000 for each council to encourage them to raise money from other sources. Mellon’s announcement includes a link to the Federation of State Humanities Councils, enabling viewers to donate to each council.
“This is an absolute lifeline to restabilize the councils,” Federation of State Humanities Councils President Phoebe Stein told the New York Times, noting that 40% of state humanities councils reported having less than six months of reserve funds.
As one would expect, humanities advocates in philanthropy are applauding Mellon’s announcement. “Grantmakers in the Arts is grateful to the Mellon Foundation’s support for our nation’s essential humanities councils,” said GIA President and CEO Eddie Torres in a statement to IP. “We must be clear: All the wealthiest philanthropic institutions and individuals combined cannot make up for government investment. This is especially true in rural and remote areas where public investment is the primary — if not the only — means of support of our ability to express ourselves creatively and for creative self-expression’s benefits to our lives, minds and hearts.”
Why some funders have stayed quiet
A lot of what we’re hearing right now — emergency funding, lifelines, a lack of reserve funds — will give readers a sense of pandemic-era deja vu.
To be clear, the analogy is far from perfect. During COVID, the government provided emergency funding; now, of course, it’s intentionally withholding funding. Nonetheless, it’s enough to make one ask why a lot more funders, having previously navigated a crisis during which organizations faced stark revenue shortfalls, haven’t made similar moves as Mellon over the past few months. This is where things get tricky.
As has been frequently noted, some funders have been reluctant to wade into uncomfortable political waters, particularly given the administration’s direct attacks — and even broader potential attacks — against 501c3 organizations. A good portion of the responsive grantmaking we’d hear so much about in a situation like COVID, especially for existing grantees, is happening or will likely happen under the radar.
I also suspect there’s a segment of funding leaders who, shellshocked by the administration’s nihilistic approach, are waiting to see how things play out in the courts before making drastic changes to their grantmaking machinery.
On April 29, for example, a federal judge ordered the administration to disburse $12 million in withheld funding to Radio Free Europe. Perhaps trustees are hoping that other judges will reverse the administration’s cuts and absolve them from having to make difficult funding choices. (Whether the administration obliges, of course, is a different story.)
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Of course, while multibillion-dollar foundations can afford to wait on federal judges, the same can’t be said for front-line organizations in the administration’s crosshairs.
For instance, in a recent article looking at the HHS’ “unliquidated obligations” to government and nongovernmental organizations, I noted that the agency withheld $25 million to Family Health International, a nonprofit contractor that implements the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief and other programs for the prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS. In late February, the organization announced it would be eliminating 483 positions, citing “the U.S. government’s reduction of federal funding and termination of projects.” As is the case for so many groups relying on federal funding to save lives in the U.S. and abroad, Trump’s cuts will have a near-term human toll.
There’s also the question of how far foundations should go to “cover” for a federal government that is abdicating its responsibilities, and what that entails for grantmakers’ missions and assets. Plug one gap, the thinking goes, and where does it end? What if the administration’s efforts to hollow out the government are not only permanent but prove to be difficult to reverse? Most foundations were established to exist forever, not to put out fires recklessly set by a president who, as strange as it sounds, will someday exit the stage. (Whether or not foundations should exist forever is another different story.)
Mellon offers a roadmap — but where are the commitments in other fields?
While recently reviewing billions in HHS cuts, I was reminded that most of us possess an innate tendency to weigh a gift’s ethical utility. A $15 million gift earmarked for cancer research or eradicating global hunger is, one might argue, ethically “better” than one to build a new football stadium.
With that in mind, we might expect to see health funders, for example, pull a page from the COVID playbook and lead the charge to publicly plug gaps in federal funding since countless lives are at risk. And yet “philanthropy has been AWOL,” Global Health Justice Partnership co-Director Gregg Gonsalves told IP’s Connie Matthiessen in late April. “Not everybody, but most of the big funders have been AWOL. There is so much need right now. They could strategically target specific programs to support, for example.”
Why is it that, so far, one of the few multibillion-dollar funders that has chosen to “strategically target” a specific area of rescinded funding is doing it in the humanities field?
Please don’t misunderstand: I recognize how the humanities enrich our lives, but I would also place them lower on the philanthropic hierarchy of need than some other causes. Setting aside a handful of cases, like the Marguerite Casey Foundation’s recent commitment, I still don’t have a good answer to explain why we’ve yet to see, for instance, major health funders publicly roll out Mellon-like initiatives to at least partially close specific funding gaps.
At the very least, Mellon has shown that the debate on whether philanthropy can “fill the gaps” isn’t a zero-sum game. Foundations and donor-advised fund account holders sitting on roughly $1.5 trillion and $254 billion in tax-exempt assets, respectively, aren’t being asked to cover every single cent in rescinded federal funding, and even if they were, we know it isn’t going to happen. A majority of foundations will disburse a mere 5% of noncharitable-use assets annually until the end of time, and some DAF account holders will be too busy to strategically make grants to nonprofits. This doesn’t absolve them from considering ways to boost their grant outlays in a way that responsibly comports with their risk appetite.
Mellon’s $15 million one-time infusion of support won’t imperil its perpetuity, nor is it guaranteed to save all 56 humanities councils from insolvency. Things could get worse before they get better. Things may get worse and never get better. But the fact that a portion of Mellon’s outlay was earmarked for challenge grants increases the odds that, at the very least, other funders can help the councils strengthen their shaky finances. This is a pragmatic approach that even the most risk-averse foundation trustee or DAF account holder can get behind.
