By Armando Zumaya

We live in a radically different time now for the nonprofits.

Federal and state funding for many programs in health, education, 

racial justice, immigration will be cut or ended altogether. We are looking at a dangerous situation for the nonprofit world. Especially for organizations focused on racial and social justice. 

There will be government cuts, while whole departments will disappear but there will also be foundations that will quietly step away from the previous commitments to racial and social justice. They will listen to the advice of lawyers and not their principles. 

All of us who work in the nonprofit space, need to summon our individual courage to do the work that we know is right.

Communities that will be persecuted need to find their own power. It will not come from a foundation bank account or from the federal government. 

It has to come from within us. 

Foundations can help a lot. The good news is that community power is extremely strong, and it can’t be taken away from us.

Now, when people think of “community power” they often don’t think of Fundraising. But fundraising and giving are the very essence of community power. I cannot say that enough. I’ve seen countless grants go to “movement building” and other such things that exclude support for fundraising, which is really confounding. How do you build a movement without powerful financial resources, especially these days when you’re countering so much misinformation. You need staff and you need budgets. All of that comes from one thing, fundraising.

This is the time right now for foundations to make major grants to support fundraising and strengthening, especially around building individual giving across the nonprofit world. It is an especially vital time for organizations that support marginalized communities that will be undermined. 

Program grants are fine, but strengthening a nonprofit is more important now than anything. I often use the analogy of a beautiful house. Program grants are buying new furniture or a television for that house. Supporting fundraising, or as I call it “strengthening” it’s like paying for a roof or the foundation. It’s the investment that protects everything you’ve built. 

This approach is contrary to the way foundations think today. The idea of strengthening the nonprofit instead of giving the program money is simply not thought of, and dismissed if the thought comes up.

We’re facing a time right now that’s unlike anything we’ve seen in our lives. We need a radical readjustment of how foundations support nonprofits, especially those organizations that are vulnerable. If we don’t do this, we will see many great organizations that support many communities close their doors. 

Most of the public won’t see it or understand the effects, or sadly even care when whole families are separated and deported, when poor women living in the rural areas cannot get healthcare anymore, when a deserving student will never go to college because their scholarship program has been shut down and lives lost because there are no vaccines at our community centers. 

I’m lucky to lead a small organization that helps Latino nonprofits improve their fundraising, the organizations with the smallest budgets and the biggest effects on their communities. We have seen success with 80.5% of members reporting having improved their fundraising. So, this works. We can do it. But we need foundations as partners to move this cause forward and defend all of our nonprofits.

Change has been forced upon us and change we must. This is not a time to wring our hands, become laden in process or to be afraid. This is a time for action. I’m happy to talk to anybody about what foundation support for Fundraising can look like.

I leave you with this quote from author Clarissa Pinole Estes: “Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach.”

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Armando Zumaya is founder of Somos El Poder in Alameda, California.  

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