How nonprofits' and funders' rule-following tendencies have been weaponized against us
Hi everyone. Reminder: Wednesday October 21st at 10am Pacific Time, please join me and fellow rabble-rouser Aparna Rae for a fun and informal conversation where we bust some of the myths about nonprofit and philanthropy. It’s free, and will be auto-captioned. Register here.
Last week, I talked about the civility industrial complex (CIC) as a manifestation of white moderation and how our sector’s propensity for niceness and conflict-avoidance has been weaponized by the right-wing, who has been funding the “bridge-building,” “viewpoint diversity,” and “polarization reduction” initiatives as a strategy to get people to avoid bringing up racism, genocide, and other forms of injustice, which then helps these inequities continue unaddressed.
Furthering the theme this week is nonprofit and foundation leader’s gravitation towards order and processes and how that too has been weaponized by the right without most of us realizing it.
After I gave a keynote a few days ago in beautiful Sonoma County, the host organization invited me to a post-event lunch. Nearly a dozen brilliant leaders from the host organization and community and I sat around an oval table. While we talked, the servers brought out people's orders. No one touched their food, as common courtesy dictated waiting until everyone received their plate before digging in.
While we waited, a nonprofit leader asked me, “You say that we should be more politically engaged and to do more advocacy work, but how do we do these things without running afoul of the rules and regulations?”
Our white-moderate need to follow rules and processes and to “do things right” has been one of the biggest barriers preventing nonprofits and philanthropy from tackling systemic injustice. For instance, in an online forum someone mentioned how nervous they were of losing their 501c3 tax exempt status because they were failing their public support test due to where most of their funds were coming from.
The right-wing, understanding that nonprofits and foundations are terrified of losing their tax status, has been weaponizing the fear and anxiety around this. You mention DEI or the word “women” or “disabled” or “trans”? You could lose your tax status! You are vocal in speaking up against the genocide of Palestinians? Well, your organization could be considered a terrorist and lose your tax status! You oppose this fascist regime? You could end up on a list and lose your tax status!!!
So what if a nonprofit lost its tax-exempt status? Is that the end of the world? The way we’ve been carrying on, it seems many people in our sector believe it would be. If you lose your tax status, it’s game over. Your org must close and you can never work on your mission again. You’ve failed, you’re a loser, no one likes you. And when your staff and board walk through town, people will chant “shame” and throw rotten produce at you. (This last thing has only happened once, and I already wrote a formal apology to that nonprofit and completed my court-mandated volunteer service hours.)
I am not trying to make light of the very real and valid fears that exist. Many organizations have gotten in trouble and have had funding frozen or rescinded. But often, we let unfounded fears and assumptions control us and allow the right to gain the upper hand. If your organization receives a lot of government funding, sure, be cautious.
But oftentimes, organizations that have little government funding are still caught up in process and procedures, to the point of "obeying in advance," a vital not-to-do when fighting fascism. The nonprofit that was afraid of losing their 501c3 status because of their funding mix? Their gross annual revenues were $50,000 total.
Even if an organization's budget were much higher, the loss of 501c3 does not necessarily end its mission. What the right-wing understands that the left often fails to, is that tax statuses and designations are tools, and if one tool is broken or otherwise unavailable, you can use other tools to achieve your goals. Who says you can ONLY do good work through a 501c3 in the US? If your nonprofit’s tax status were revoked, form another type of organization. Form a corporation. Start a movement.
Heck, form a RELIGION. As Thaddeus Squire writes in a brilliant post called “Four Ways the Nonprofit Sector Can Tell the Trump Administration to F**k Off”:
“Owing to the unique position that religion has held in the American experiment, it is the only federally recognized charitable activity that is fully de facto exempt in the eyes of the IRS. Yes, you heard that right. You DO NOT need to petition the IRS for tax exempt status to start a religion. I could wake up tomorrow, rent a storefront, declare a catechism for the Sacred Temple of Squire, and start welcoming members and tax-deductible donations without so much as a legal formation or permission from the IRS. And I would also have zero reporting or accountability to the IRS or any other public authority, forever.”
While the liberal wing of our sector has been terrified of not following established protocols and the consequences that may bring, the right of course has been breaking rules with reckless abandon. And it helps explains how they have been so effective.
The more we are inclined to follow rules and processes and are fearful of the consequences for not doing so, the more effective the right-wing will be in using the rules and our fear against us, while they themselves are not anywhere bound by the same parameters. We need to stop being so beholden to rules and processes, most of which are arbitrary or designed to maintain unjust systems.
For nonprofits, this means stopping the endless handwringing around losing tax status. It means understanding the difference between “doing the right things” and “doing things right,” and prioritizing doing the right things, which often involves breaking some protocols. It means being creative—such as forming a religion!—when encountering barriers. It means taking more risks. It means asking for forgiveness over the white-moderate default of asking for permission.
For funders and donors, this means reconsidering the strict adherence to burdensome, pointless funding processes. Who says you can’t fund an organization unless it has a tax designation? Your bylaws? They’re not written in stone! Change them so you can fund advocacy, political engagement, individual leaders, movements, and other entities that do not conform to a narrow and arbitrary set of qualifications.
If a nonprofit loses its tax status because it refuses to stop its DEI work, funders need to fund it still! Tell your general counsels to get over their white-moderate habit of prioritizing the minimizing of risks and liabilities over the mission’s work to advance equity and justice. Or else fire them and get better ones who understand that their role is to protect your foundation when it takes risks, not prevent your foundation from taking any risks in the first place. Set aside funding to for legal and other forms of support for leaders and organizations that get into trouble because they break protocols in alignment with equity and justice.
The white-moderate urge to follow protocols, even unspoken ones, is so powerful and pervasive that we don't even realize we're doing it. At the lunch I mentioned earlier, we had waited a while and yet a couple of colleagues still hadn't gotten their meals, so no one had started eating, even though I could tell everyone was hungry. I was starving, but it would have been so rude if I broke the common courtesy rule and started stuffing my face with the vegan pozole that was inches away from me.
Then I remembered I had a flight to catch, so I grabbed my spoon and started chowing down. This seemed to give permission to the others who had been holding back, and we all ate. The two colleagues who were still waiting for their orders did not seem to mind at all, and in fact appeared relieved that they weren't keeping us from eating.
There are times and places when we should follow protocols and courtesies. But we must be aware of when our propensity for sticking to them makes no sense and is possibly impeding us in our work. With the stakes so high right now, lets ensure the rules, processes, courtesies, and protocols are tools helping us achieve a just an equitable world, and not weapons wielded by the people opposing justice to prevent us from doing so.
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