New York positions itself as a bastion of inclusion amid federal rollbacks. The latest example is Mayor Zohran Mamdani announcing the creation of the city’s first Office of LGBTQIA+ Affairs, appointing lawyer and activist Taylor Brown as its director. Brown becomes the first openly trans person to lead a municipal agency in New York.

The initiative comes against the backdrop of sweeping federal cuts introduced by Donald Trump upon returning to the presidency in January 2025. Among his administration’s first measures was the elimination of more than 270 National Institutes of Health grants, worth over $125 million, dedicated to LGBTQIA+ health research. These funds had supported HIV prevention programs, mental health studies, and precision medicine projects.

“I think New York City has been a sanctuary city for immigrants for a while, and its proposal to make it a sanctuary city for the LGBTQ community is really important,” said Lorelei Crean, lead organizer at NYC Youth 4 Trans Rights, in conversation with NPQ.

Crean added that many queer people are currently fleeing states with hostile legislation—they cited Kansas’s new ID law, which invalidated the driver’s licenses of hundreds of trans people in the state—and emphasized that New York aims to position itself as a safe place to migrate and live. Crean noted that the state has one of the strongest legislative frameworks in the country on trans issues and highlighted the role of New York State Attorney General Letitia James, who has been leading legal efforts against the administration’s restrictions on transgender healthcare.

Mamdani framed the new office as a local counterweight to these rollbacks. “New York City is proud of its LGBTQIA+ community and will refuse to deny healthcare, safety or dignity to anyone on the basis of their identity,” he declared in a statement.

Three Central Commitments

The Office of LGBTQIA+ Affairs extends the work of the NYC Unity Project, created under Bill de Blasio, and adds a sanctuary component for queer and trans people fleeing persecution in other states. While Mamdani avoided specifying the budget allocation, the office is tasked with ensuring that no municipal agency discriminates on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.

Taylor Brown brings a strong legal background to the role. She worked in the New York Attorney General’s office, contributing to lawsuits against Nassau County’s ban on trans women in sports, and at Lambda Legal and the ACLU, where she helped secure a landmark ruling allowing trans people to amend their birth certificates in West Virginia.

“We want the same things as everyone else, and we deserve the same things as everyone else. We are people,” Brown said upon taking office.

Brown’s appointment responds to longstanding demands from local organizations that had called for a dedicated municipal structure to systematically protect LGBTQIA+ rights. The move comes in a climate where, according to data from the city’s Human Rights Commission, 23 percent of transgender residents reported experiencing housing discrimination in 2024.

The new office is designed to address these issues comprehensively, coordinating efforts across municipal agencies to ensure that protections are not fragmented but embedded throughout the city’s governance.

Mamdani’s campaign platform went beyond the creation of the office. He pledged three central commitments: to make New York a sanctuary city for queer and trans people, to establish the Office of LGBTQIA+ Affairs, and to invest $65 million in gender-affirming care. According to the plan, $57 million would go to public hospitals, community clinics, and nonprofits, while $8 million would fund telemedicine and expanded access programs.

Yet the preliminary 2027 budget does not explicitly reflect this allocation, raising concerns about the office’s operational capacity. The office has been created, but it cannot function fully because the entire state budget is still being negotiated. Nothing—related to LGBTQIA+ care or otherwise—has been funded yet.

Precariousness of LGBTQIA+ Healthcare

The announcement of New York’s new Office of LGBTQIA+ Affairs also coincided with the closure of gender-affirming care services for minors at NYU Langone Health. The hospital cited federal funding threats and regulatory pressure under the Trump administration—including risks to Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements—as well as the departure of the program’s medical director.

Legislation becomes ineffective when it is disconnected from the communities it is intended to support.

Families of patients under 18 were notified that gender-related care would no longer be available, leaving many without alternatives in the city. This decision followed earlier restrictions in 2025, when NYU Langone stopped accepting new patients under 19 needing gender-affirming care after an executive order targeting providers.

The latest closure could foreshadow broader limitations, even for adult patients, underscoring the precariousness of LGBTQIA+ healthcare under current federal policy. Local politicians condemned the move as part of a nationwide rollback of rights and protections, framing Mamdani’s initiative as a deliberate counterweight to this climate of retrenchment.

“The office should prioritize funding community-based, LGBTQIA+-led organizations that understand seniors’ needs firsthand and already work within the community,” Sean Ebony Coleman, founder and CEO of Destination Tomorrow, a grassroots LGBTQ+ agency with a site in the Bronx, told NPQ.

Rights are indivisible….Strengthening protections for one vulnerable group ultimately reinforces the resilience of all.

Coleman argues that a holistic approach is needed—one that includes funding for mental health resources, case management, safe spaces, and specialized care—and warns that legislation becomes ineffective when it is disconnected from the communities it is intended to support.

Reinforcing the Resilience of All

The initiative in New York inevitably raises the question of whether similar offices could be replicated elsewhere.

In principle, the model is transferable to large urban centers with diverse populations and histories of activism. Cities like Los Angeles, Chicago, or San Francisco already have frameworks for immigrant protection and could expand them to encompass LGBTQIA+ rights more systematically.

The challenge lies in political will and budgetary priorities. At a time when many municipalities are directing resources toward immigration rights or sanctuary protections, carving out dedicated structures for queer and trans communities requires leaders willing to argue that rights are indivisible—and that strengthening protections for one vulnerable group ultimately reinforces the resilience of all.

Jamie Roberts, cofounder of Trans Housing Atlanta Program, Inc., told NPQ, “I am delighted at Zohran Mamdani’s plan to transform New York City into a sanctuary for LGBTQIA+ communities. I would love for the City of Atlanta and other local governments to do the same. I anticipate such a plan for Atlanta—one that would include lawyers fighting against anti-trans policies and allocating millions for housing and gender-affirming healthcare—would encounter several barriers.”

Carving out space for LGBTQIA+ rights requires deliberate political will.

Roberts explained that the greatest barrier would likely come from members of the Georgia General Assembly and the governor, conservative Republicans who in recent years have passed laws criminalizing gender-affirming healthcare for minors and banning their participation in school and college sports.

“We will remain engaged in our advocacy to make the local shelter system respect the dignity of transgender and gender nonbinary people,” Roberts added.

Tracee McDaniel, executive director and founder of Juxtaposed Center for Transformation, told NPQ that Mamdani’s initiative should serve as a model for other cities. As the former chairwoman of Atlanta’s Police Oversight Board, she emphasized the urgency of creating safe spaces for trans, gender nonconforming, and nonbinary people. “The current administration is placing bull’s-eyes on our backs and using us as wedge issues to divide and conquer,” she said, arguing that this climate has enabled Republicans to draft anti-trans legislation nationwide.

McDaniel lamented that despite progress under the Obama and Biden administrations, trans communities have become “more marginalized than ever at every intersection of our lives” due to divisive political rhetoric. “I applaud New York’s mayor for his boldness, and I hope he will serve as an example for others in power to follow,” she said.

Ultimately, the creation of the Office of LGBTQIA+ Affairs represents a profound challenge: At a time when much of the city’s energy and resources are concentrated on preventing deportations and protecting immigrant communities—the most urgent concern for many New Yorkers—carving out space for LGBTQIA+ rights requires deliberate political will.

Advocates insist that expanding sanctuary protections does not undermine existing commitments but rather strengthens the city’s broader promise of safety.

“We are seeing resistance to ICE across the city, and we are seeing that be a priority for elected officials at both the city and state levels. Making New York City a sanctuary city for queer people as well as immigrants is not going to divert any power from the fact that New York is already a sanctuary city for immigrants—I think it’s just adding, it’s not taking away,” Lorelei Crean said.

Sean Ebony Coleman also underscored the need to address both sets of needs: “Expanding sanctuary protections to LGBTQIA+ rights can strengthen solidarity and show how diverse communities’ struggles are connected.”

For More on This Topic

Nonprofit Organizations Continue to Fight Against Trans Erasure

What’s Really at Stake When Funders Abandon Transgender Communities?

Transgender Rights Under Threat: Preparing for Federal Crackdowns

This story was originally reported by Shefali Luthra of The 19th. Meet Shefali and read more of their reporting on gender, politics and policy.

Laura stopped leaving her home weeks before she gave birth. She lived outside of Minneapolis, where many people had been taken by immigration officials. She thought of mothers separated from babies, of children taken to detention facilities.

By the time she went into labor, her stress was so intense that her body had stopped producing sufficient oxytocin, her doctors told her. The  hormone is critical for labor and breastfeeding. Low oxytocin levels are linked with postpartum depression and severe depression.

Her contractions began in the middle of the night in January; without many options, she called her doula. Her father had been deported years ago. Her boyfriend had been staying with his mother since his dad was detained weeks before. They worried that if he left to drive Laura, he might be taken, too.

On January 14, Laura, an immigrant from Honduras with an application for asylum, became a mom. Her boyfriend, driven by her doula, joined Laura at the hospital after she gave birth, where for at least one day, the three of them could be together. She rested while he met his new daughter, a healthy 7-pound girl.

It felt simple: “He was very happy,” Laura said.

Laura, whose last name has been withheld because she fears being targeted by immigration authorities, would have loved to see other friends and family. But from the hospital bed, she worried about the consequences they could face — if coming to meet the baby might mean risking detention, or even deportation. She had no other visitors.

Leaving the hospital as a first-time mom can feel like liberation, escaping the solitude of a hospital room and venturing into the world. But Laura traded one form of isolation for another: her one-bedroom apartment, where visitors were rare.

“I was all alone with the baby, and no one could come see me because of immigration,” Laura said.

That fear has infected Laura’s whole community — isolating her from many of the people who, in a different time, might have helped the 24-year-old adjust to her new life as a mom. That includes her boyfriend, who has hardly seen his daughter since that hospital visit.

I am afraid that one day they will get me, and I will leave the baby alone.
—Laura

Even as the federal government’s Minnesota presence is waning, Laura remains afraid of what could happen if immigration officials take her away from her girl.

“I am afraid that one day they will get me, and I will leave the baby alone,” she said in Spanish.

The Trump administration’s sweeping immigration raids across the country —  exemplified by its monthslong campaign in Minnesota — sent many immigrants inside, deterring them from seeking medical care, going to work or school, or even visiting friends or family members. Federal data suggests that detention rates are slowing, and Markwayne Mullin, the new secretary for Homeland Security, suggested he would steer the department away from sustained public raids to more targeted enforcement. Still, life has not returned to normal for many.

Isolation can allow chronic illnesses to worsen, leave people without income, and foster loneliness that can elevate the risk of depression or even post-traumatic stress disorder. But the consequences are particularly acute for people who have just given birth.

One-third of maternal deaths occur in the first year postpartum. Most are preventable, the result of untreated physical complications or severe postpartum depression. Research suggests that immigrants are less likely to have adequate postpartum health care due to limited insurance coverage. Latinas are twice as likely as White women to develop postpartum depression, and less likely to get treatment.

The first weeks and months after giving birth are challenging under the best of circumstances. Almost all postpartum people experience the “baby blues,” a brief depressive period caused by hormonal shifts after giving birth. There is sleep deprivation, late nights of feeding, pumping and figuring out infant sleep. New moms in particular often report feelings of loneliness and isolation.

And there is the physical toll. Recovery can take weeks, especially with a Cesarean section, and people can experience life-threatening conditions such as postpartum hemorrhage, preeclampsia or postpartum infection.

Doctors say newly postpartum people need support: access to medical care when needed, sleep whenever possible, and critically, the ability to rely on friends and family for help.

But immigration crackdowns have made that impossible for Laura.

“Taking a step back and thinking about postpartum, it’s one of the highest risk times for a patient that just delivered and where most of the complications can happen,” said Dr. Jesus Ruiz, a family medicine physician in North Carolina who has studied the health and wellbeing of postpartum immigrants. “It’s already difficult enough being in the postpartum state. Having a newborn, people are more prone to depression. If they are depressed, we’ll miss it.”

When Ruiz’s home state was the subject of sweeping immigration raids last November, patients increasingly skipped their postpartum visits, he said. Many expressed nervousness about going outside, even for routine errands. He is worried about the longer-term consequences for not only his patients, but also their babies, who typically need regular follow-ups with a doctor, and who can benefit in their early months of life with visits from other family members.

Eight days before her scheduled C-section, Reina’s husband was detained. She was in the kitchen of her Minneapolis-area apartment, cooking, when the phone lit up with a call from her mother-in-law. “They arrested him,” she told her, urging Reina to be strong.

For days, Reina, who has a pending asylum application and requested her last name be withheld, could barely eat or sleep, let alone care for her other three children, the oldest of whom is 14. She could only eat by reminding herself: Do it for the baby. When she arrived at the hospital on January 20, she was dehydrated and had low blood pressure. She was grateful her infant son was healthy.

After they arrived home from the hospital, Reina spent close to two weeks not leaving her home, relying only on her other children for help caring for her newborn, before a lawyer was able to secure her husband’s release.

The first night her husband came home, she said, he didn’t sleep all night — instead, he just kept looking at their baby, carrying him around.

“He said, ‘I am afraid to sleep, because I can’t believe he is here,’” she said in Spanish.

Reina’s health care provider did at-home check-ups for her and the baby. Weeks after giving birth, Reina still had low blood pressure, headaches and pain in her neck and shoulders. She wasn’t sure if it was residual complications from her delivery, or because she was so stressed about what might happen if anyone in her family goes out at the wrong time.

Even now as the stress is abating — as she is now taking her baby on small trips outside — she is still nervous about encountering immigration officials.

“I’m still afraid, but it’s not the same as it was,” she said at the end of March.

Though fewer immigration officials are on the streets of Minneapolis, “No one quite believes it’s over,” said Kate Percuoco, an early childhood educator in the city who cares for children from immigrant families. Families are still staying home from work, skipping appointments at doctors’ offices and nervous even about venturing to child care facilities like hers.

Four mothers with children in her program either were pregnant or gave birth over the course of the federal government’s increased presence in Minnesota. All expressed concern that going outside could put their families at risk. Percuoco is doing her best to help. She’s been scouring Facebook “Buy Nothing” groups for anything that might help: diapers, a crib, a car seat, a bath tub.

“The impact of this on people’s sense of safety is going to last a really really long time. Several people have commented to me, ‘I don’t want to live like this. I don’t want to live in fear. This is not a life to constantly worry that I’m going to be separated from my children,’” she said. “That sense of safety has been taken from people.”

Postpartum medical care can be critical. But it’s difficult to come by for women who, unlike Laura or Reina, don’t have someone to visit them at home. In early March, Percuoco drove one new mom to an appointment — it was the woman’s first time leaving the house since giving birth in December. The woman had been having chest pains and difficulty breathing.

Another postpartum woman Percuoco helped had high blood pressure but was too afraid to see a doctor. Instead, she used her husband’s old medication until Percuoco got her in touch with a nurse.

Dr. Rose Molina, an OBGYN in Boston and professor at Harvard Medical School who treats a large number of immigrants, said she, too, has seen fewer postpartum patients in recent months, with cancellation rates fluctuating based on when someone’s neighborhood may have experienced an immigration raid.

When she cares for postpartum patients, particularly those who are immigrants, she said, she frequently is asked about how soon they can return to work. Her patients are worried about making ends meet — earning enough money to care for their children.

We have become practically trapped by four walls. Lately, I feel alone. —Laura

“That is who they are: strong, resilient women, and all they can think about is, ‘I need to go back to work so I can pay for rent, pay for food, all these things in my life,’” she said.

After Laura left the hospital, she stayed briefly with a few friends, a chance to have a little extra company and support. There were immigration officials outside. But as long as they didn’t leave, she said, they were safe enough. She had people to rely on.

Now, back home in her one-bedroom apartment, “We have become practically trapped by four walls,” she said one afternoon, holding her daughter. It’s just the two of them.

“Lately, I feel alone.”

Her daughter sleeps in a bassinet next to her bed. On a routine morning, Laura wakes up, and then her daughter does. She feeds her baby. She cleans up a bit and cooks with groceries she has delivered. In the afternoons, she sits on her couch, holding her girl while encouraging her to nap on her lap.

Their days are confined to the few rooms in her home: the kitchen space, dining table, the couch and her bedroom. There’s a small balcony; on sunny days, light pours in from the windows. It’s the rare connection she has to the outside world. Even taking out the trash feels dangerous, Laura said..

She’s been using her savings accumulated through her job cleaning at construction sites to pay for groceries. Her partner sends money to help with bills. She has neighbors who would sometimes come by with food or who bring diapers.

One of her friends, one who has papers, is able to visit her on occasion. They eat together, and they talk about her baby, who now weighs more than 12 pounds. But they also discuss the presence of immigration officials. They wonder when things might be normal, when it might be safe again.

She feels stressed all the time — sometimes, maybe, depressed, she added.

She’s made contingency plans, she said, identifying a friend who could care for her daughter if she is deported.

Most days she spends alone with her child, whose soft toys lie strewn on the couch, by the table, on the floor.

On the best days, she said, “I feel happy. I have my baby.”

Things are changing — but slowly. At the end of March, she finally went for her first doctor’s appointment outside of her apartment. Her daughter’s father has visited three times, but only at night. “It’s less dangerous,” she said.

Eventually, she said, she hopes things will feel safe enough that she can return to work. Someday, she said, she’s sure that will happen. She’s just not sure when.

She and her daughter are beginning to better understand each other. And she has to be strong, she said — her girl needs her to be.

Chabeli Carrazana contributed reporting.

The Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA) was designed to protect people from discrimination when they seek credit. It rests on a simple idea: Whether someone can buy a home, start a small business, or go to college should not depend on their race, gender, or the neighborhood they come from. Most of us rely on credit to pursue these opportunities. That is why the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB’s) proposed changes to Regulation B—the implementation mechanism of ECOA—are so alarming.

The CFPB’s November 2025 proposal would undercut core ECOA protections by making lending discrimination much harder to prove. It would specifically eliminate disparate impact liability for lenders, narrow the scope of discouragement claims, and prohibit race and gender-based Special Purpose Credit Programs (SPCPs). In practice, that means giving bad-faith lenders more room to discriminate while making it harder for communities to challenge unequal treatment.

Historically, low- to moderate-income communities have been subjected to redlining—intentional discrimination based on a neighborhood’s racial composition—by financial institutions. They have also often lacked access to mainstream financial services.

And the consequences have been stark. The historical impact of redlining and present-day lending discrimination has resulted in today’s staggering racial wealth gap. In 2022, the median White household held $284,130 in wealth, more than six times that of the median Black household at $44,210.

Discrimination hides behind policies that appear neutral on paper but disproportionately exclude certain groups in practice.

The National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC) works to close this gap by holding banks accountable under the Community Reinvestment Act, which requires them to reinvest in the communities from which they take deposits. That means more mortgage lending, more small business lending, more bank branches, and more investment in neighborhoods that were once written off. The ECOA complements that mission by prohibiting discrimination in credit and helping ensure that equal access to capital is more than a slogan.

However, the CFPB’s proposed rule moves in the opposite direction. One of the most troubling changes is its effort to eliminate disparate impact liability.

Disparate Impact Matters

Discrimination is not always explicit. In fact, it rarely is. Lenders do not announce their discriminatory intent. More often, discrimination hides behind policies that appear neutral on paper but disproportionately exclude certain groups in practice. For example, a lender may require applicants to meet a minimum credit score to qualify for a home loan, which appears to be a neutral policy.

Equal opportunity is not a finite resource.

Black borrowers, however, are more likely to have lower credit scores or be “credit invisible” due to long-standing structural racism and historic exclusion from mainstream financial services. Such a policy can disproportionately shut Black borrowers out.

That is exactly why disparate impact matters, because it allows regulators and advocates to identify policies that produce discriminatory outcomes, even when no one openly says the quiet part out loud.

The CFPB now suggests that addressing those inequities risks “reverse discrimination.” That argument is both cynical and wrong. Black applicants are more likely than White applicants to be denied a mortgage even after controlling for key risk characteristics, such as credit score, loan-to-value ratio, and debt-to-income ratio.

Creating fairer underwriting criteria that expand access to credit for qualified Black applicants does not somehow injure White borrowers. Equal opportunity is not a finite resource. And removing unnecessary barriers for one group does not require erecting new ones for another. Access to credit is not only shaped by more equitable policies, but also by whether people feel welcome to apply in the first place. That is why discouragement claims matter.

Under the current framework of Regulation B, discouragement can extend beyond blatant statements. It can include actions and patterns that signal to certain communities that they are not wanted as customers. Bank branch placement is a clear example. When a bank saturates affluent White neighborhoods with branches while avoiding low- and moderate-income (LMI) communities and neighborhoods of color, it sends a clear message: “We don’t want to provide our services to you.”

NCRC’s own analysis found that between 2010 and 2021, only 15 percent of the 4,130 branches that large banks opened were in majority-minority LMI neighborhoods, in contrast to 61 percent of bank branch openings in predominantly White, upper-income neighborhoods.

Under the new proposed rule, CFPB would narrow the scope of discouragement claims only to explicit oral and written statements, such as a lender publicly stating that they don’t lend to people in “risky neighborhoods.”

The Racial Wealth Gap

Then there is the attack on Special Purpose Credit Programs (SPCP), one of the most effective tools available to address longstanding inequities in access to credit. Congress authorized these programs by amending ECOA in 1974, acknowledging that equality sometimes requires more than simply banning overt discrimination. It also allows for the creation of targeted programs to meet the needs of communities that have been historically excluded.

SPCPs make that possible by encouraging financial institutions to design responsible programs for economically disadvantaged borrowers, such as down-payment assistance for first-time homebuyers or affordable small business loan products for women and entrepreneurs of color.

SPCPs are an important corrective tool meant to expand fair access in markets that have long failed to do so. Yet, the CFPB’s proposal would prohibit race- and gender-conscious SPCPs on the theory that they, too, amount to so-called reverse discrimination.

That position ignores both history and reality. A policy designed to remedy entrenched exclusion is not equivalent to a policy that created that exclusion in the first place.

The Law of the Land

Even if the proposed rule is implemented, ECOA will remain the law of the land, and economic justice advocates should not see this as a total loss.

Congress, the CFPB, and banks have a role to play in protecting equal credit opportunity. Congress should use its oversight authority to ensure ECOA remains a strong civil rights law by preserving disparate impact liability, broad discouragement protections, and Special Purpose Credit Programs as lawful tools to address longstanding inequities.

The CFPB should withdraw this proposal and return to its core mission of protecting consumers from discrimination. Banks should also expand responsible lending, branch access, and targeted programs in communities rather than retreating. Advocates must keep organizing, documenting harm, and pressing both the CFPB and Congress to defend the full promise of fair lending law. Any retreat from these protections is not a technical policy shift, but a choice to tolerate discrimination and widen the racial wealth gap.

For More on This Topic:

How Guarantees Can Advance Community Development and Racial Equity

From Precarity to Promise: How Public Policy Can Reverse the Wealth Gap

Beyond Equity: Targeted Universalism and the Closing of the Racial Wealth Gap

When I started work at a nonprofit for orphans in New York, I told myself to keep my head down, do good work, and be grateful to have a paycheck. I worked directly with the children, managing daily routines while trying to keep up with shifting expectations from management.

Common workplace problems were framed as personal failings, burnout meant poor time management, low morale meant a lack of resilience, and high turnover meant employees simply weren’t a fit. Over time, the same issues kept repeating: Staff were staying late to cover gaps without pay, and shifts changed with little notice, even when it disrupted care routines.

People were exhausted. People were scared. People were quietly leaving.

At first, staff conversations happened in hallways and group chats. Small, careful check-ins: “Is it just me?” “Are you feeling this too?” One colleague, whom we’ll refer to as Ken, worked a different shift from mine, but we kept running into the same problems: being asked to stay past our scheduled hours to cover understaffed shifts or being blamed when expectations around the children’s care changed without warning.

We discovered that we were all carrying the same stress in isolation. Once we started naming the patterns—unpaid overtime, shifting expectations, and write-ups that followed anyone who questioned them—we understood the problem was structural.

For us, organizing was listening to each other and documenting what happened when people were too tired or scared to speak. We built trust slowly, across different roles, backgrounds, and fears.

I stopped seeing myself as someone just trying to survive a job and started seeing myself as part of a collective with power.

Of course, there were moments we almost capitulated, like the time Ken spoke up during a staff meeting about staying late to cover shifts without pay, which resulted in him being written up for an “attitude” and “lack of teamwork.” After that, people stopped raising concerns openly during meetings. Conversations moved back to private messages and whispered check-ins between shifts.

At the time, it made speaking up seem like a liability. When management later called us “unprofessional” for asking questions, it didn’t feel abstract anymore. It felt like a warning.

But knowing silence isn’t harmless, we kept going.

Eventually, we learned how to speak collectively, as workers with shared demands. We wrote those demands down together: consistent staffing levels, clearer expectations for our roles, and proper pay for all hours worked. We practiced what to say before raising anything formally, and we made sure no one stood alone in those conversations. The shift was subtle but powerful: Instead of asking for favors, we started insisting on basic fairness. Instead of apologizing for existing, we named what was wrong.

Justice at work isn’t given. It’s built, slowly, imperfectly, by people who never planned to become organizers, but who refuse to stay small.

Some things changed, but not everything. Managers became more cautious about asking staff to stay beyond their shifts without pay. Schedules were shared earlier, even if not always consistently. There was more acknowledgment, however reluctant, that staffing shortages were affecting both workers and the quality of care. Conversations that used to be shut down began to happen more openly, even if they were tense. The wins were partial and fragile, but they were real.

I stopped seeing myself as someone just trying to survive a job and started seeing myself as part of a collective with power. Not perfect power. Not guaranteed power. But shared power, the kind that grows when people decide they deserve better together.

Justice at work isn’t given. It’s built, slowly, imperfectly, by people who never planned to become organizers, but who refuse to stay small.

Notes from the Long Arc offers a candid, narrative-driven look at the unseen mechanics, inherited myths, and emerging possibilities within philanthropy and wealth work. Through stories, analysis, and movement-grounded observations, Sadé Dozan examines how resources flow—or fail to flow—through our social change ecosystems, and what that reveals about power, belonging, and democracy.

The first time I was pepper-sprayed was at a nightclub in Brooklyn. My friends and I were out—a respite from the trenches of community organizing to reset with joy.

I was in my early twenties—young, queer, Brown, and living on the edges of Crown Heights, Brooklyn. I’ve always believed—and still believe—that joy is critical to infrastructure. Even when our proximity to formal power is limited, joy allows us to practice freedom in small doses. Joy reminds us that our existence is not reducible to survival alone.

That night, we were at a queer party in a club that did not host us often. The promoters were friends, trying something different. Intentional, and we trusted them. We trusted that our presence could shift a room. Black and Brown queer bodies filling a space that had not always welcomed us. Dancing. Sweating. Becoming.

It felt small.

It felt enormous.

Then a group of neighborhood men entered and released pepper spray into the vents. My eyes burned. My throat tightened. The music cut midbeat, and bodies immediately moved to exit. Someone fell, someone else stumbled over them. After the initial screams, I remember thinking: Breathe. Get out. Just breathe.

The police took time to arrive. The EMTs took even longer.

I’ve always believed—and still believe—that joy is critical to infrastructure.

Outside in the night air—coughing and checking in on each other—we felt the absence of care, as my friend—who is trans—shook on the floor, struggling to breathe.¹ They were questioned before being assisted. There were disputes over ID. Over legitimacy. Over who we were and what we were doing in this neighborhood, our home.

Still today—long after the burn has subsided—I reflect deeply on what it means to build community in a place that does not want you, within a system that will respond to your harm with suspicion rather than care.

The first responder delay was a message in itself: Our distress was not urgent; our safety was conditional; our presence felt negotiable.

The Leaders We Learn From, but Don’t Fully Resource

Watching someone struggle to breathe while their eligibility for care was quietly debated is unsettling. When I think about the delay and callousness in the EMTs’ response, I see it not as an isolated failure, but as part of a broader pattern echoed throughout the systems we navigate—including the social sector.

That moment was not just about a nightclub incident. Over time, I learned that it served as a mirror, reflecting how systems are designed with established boundaries about who counts. Institutions often pause at the edge of urgency, deciding who is legitimate enough to help, who fits the criteria, who belongs inside the boundaries of care.

These patterns of institutional behavior are still evident today. I often see it in philanthropy, where response is often slowed by assessment, eligibility, and control—even in moments that require immediacy. Resources are finite, yes—but where we draw those limits is a choice.

We are living in a moment where democratic institutions are thinning, where hostility toward queer, Black, trans, disabled, and immigrant communities are not episodic but strategic and cascading. Philanthropic leaders—even the most well-intentioned—regularly turn to mobilizers within these communities for insight: how to organize under hostile legislation, how to protect communities when institutions fail, how to anticipate the next wave of strategy. And yet the work itself remains chronically underfunded.

Trans communities often experience the leading edge of backlash before it spreads throughout the broader public. What begins as legislation targeting trans people rarely stays there. The strategies expand, the narratives spread, the policy frameworks replicate. Which is why trans leaders frequently hold some of the sharpest strategic insights about how these political dynamics operate.

Their knowledge shapes coalitions’ strategy, messaging, and broader democratic defense investments. Yet trans-focused organizing remains among the most underresourced work in the movement ecosystem.

Philanthropy asks trans leaders to help the field understand the terrain, but we rarely resource the infrastructure required for their communities to sustain the work that enables this understanding. Then we look around years later and ask how democratic institutions became so vulnerable.

The Courage to Stay the Course Amid Adversity

Pepper spray is not always literal. It does not always come through air vents. Sometimes it arrives as legislation. Sometimes as funding withdrawals. Sometimes as narrative warfare designed to isolate communities until their survival appears politically inconvenient.

After that night with my friends, we all could have retreated. We could have stopped going to clubs and decided the risk wasn’t worth it. We could have let the night become the story of what happens when we try to gather and express our joy.

In the days after, some of us were still reeling. Some carried it quietly, eyes scanning rooms longer than they did before. Rage felt appropriate. For some, even necessary. If the system won’t protect you, the fire of rage and retaliation allows you to become the force it answers to.

But in neighborhoods like ours, escalation rarely lands evenly. The aftermath often results in more policing than already existed—crackdowns that do not distinguish between those who caused harm and those surviving it. All-consuming fire risked collapsing the fragile ecosystem we were still building. Rather than fracturing, we needed density.

Too often philanthropy funds movements just enough to endure crisis, but not enough to escape it.

So, we stayed. We were building community the way my people knew how: through gathering. Through collectivism, through care…through music loud enough to shake something loose inside your chest.

But staying is not romantic. It is expensive, slow, and exhaustive work. It is not without risk with irreplaceable costs. The toll of it is often invisible.

Whether on a Brooklyn sidewalk or inside the architecture of our democratic institutions, our choice to stay committed to protecting our freedom remains the same.

Ecosystems that Form: Infrastructure Supporting Movements

Too often, philanthropy funds movements just enough to endure crisis, but not enough to escape it. And who we decide is worthy of protection is always a reflection of where we are willing to invest.

In this way, philanthropy often quietly shapes which movements survive—I reflected on these observations while speaking with Carlo Gómez Arteaga, co-executive director of the Transgender District in San Francisco. Carlo and his co-director Breonna McCree have spent years building infrastructure for trans communities. This work exists in constant negotiation with systems not designed for their survival.

When movements are forced into permanent survival mode, they cannot build the infrastructure democracy requires.

Our conversation kept returning to a simple but difficult truth: Movements endure because ecosystems form around the people who choose to stay to improve their communities and advocate for systemic change.

At one point, Arteaga said something that stays with me: “Over time, you start to see who is organized to survive and who isn’t. Some leaders are resourced long enough to stay, long enough to continue to build. While others remain on the margins—even when they are closest to the communities most impacted.”

Mobilizers on the frontlines rarely survive this work alone. These leaders endure because networks form around them: people sharing skills, relationships, resources, and knowledge long before institutions decide their work is worthy of investment.

Mutual aid, shared skills, and collective care can keep movements breathing—but they cannot substitute for the stable resources required to build institutions, develop strategy, and sustain leadership over time.

Even after capital resources enter movements, when organizations lose funding due to philanthropic shifts, it is often those community ecosystems that keep the movements alive. But aliveness does not equate to capital. And capital—along with formal power—is what is needed to endure.

When movements are forced into permanent survival mode, they cannot build the infrastructure democracy requires. From this understanding, philanthropy must ask itself: What would it mean to treat survival of trans-led organizing not as a niche funding priority, but as a democratic infrastructure? Because movements require more than courage—they require fully resourced leadership pipelines, safety networks, legal strategies, and narrative strategies.

Fire and Foundation: What Sustains Movements

Movements are often sparked by the fire within, and they endure through resourced ecosystems and community networks that make staying possible.

Like so many before us, resourcing infrastructure durable enough to withstand hostility and violence can foster resilience in the face of opposition.

During the 1964 Freedom Summer in Mississippi, organizers understood that registering voters without cultivating full political education and belief would not sustain democracy. So, they built the scaffolding alongside the protest. They created Freedom Schools inside churches and community centers—teaching Black history, civic literacy, and political imagination amid violent repression.

That scaffolding required resources. National civil rights networks raised funds from Northern congregations and progressive foundations, many of which put themselves at risk of backlash for supporting civil rights organizing.

Years later, in 1977, disabled activists occupied a federal building in San Francisco during the 504 Sit-in. They stayed inside for 28 days, organizing food deliveries, coordinating medical support, and drafting the policy language that would become the first federal disability rights regulations—regulations we are still fortifying today.

That work was supported through cross-movement solidarity that sustained the occupation. The Black Panther Party delivered hot meals. Donors moved dollars to support community infrastructure.

In the 1980s, during the early years of the HIV/AIDS crisis, queer and trans organizers built care networks long before institutions responded. Activists within ACT UP and community health collectives organized treatment education, legal advocacy, and patient networks that ultimately shaped federal drug approval processes and expanded patients’ rights to clinical trials. Philanthropy eventually funded pieces of this work—but as so often happens, those investments came years after the community had built the infrastructure needed to survive, after so many lives had already been lost. How much faster would the crisis have been quelled if philanthropy had trusted these community leaders and resourced them sooner?

Philanthropy tends to fund the movements it can see—the protest, the crisis, the campaign—while overlooking the underlying ecosystems that sustain over time. The result is investment in visibility without equal investment in durability. The consequence: a sector trapped in cycles of scarcity—organizations competing for shrinking pools of capital, leaders forced to triage rather than build, movements surviving year to year rather than shaping the decades ahead.

What Staying Requires Now

In these moments of uncertainty and political regression, retreat can look like safety—but it is often an act of obligatory compliance and surrender.

If obligatory obedience is the architecture that hollows out our civic life, then disciplined staying is the blueprint for rebuilding it. Staying power requires doubling down. It requires risking more than you thought was feasible.

If we are serious about staying—and not tightening or shrinking—then staying in our work demands something different from all of us to create a level of change that meaningfully advances justice while preserving our human rights.

For philanthropy, that truth of what staying requires of our leaders demands a sometimes uncomfortable reconciliation. Decolonizing wealth in practice means redistributing not only dollars but decision-making with the intent to remove the barriers that keep communities closest to the work from governing the resources meant to sustain them.

For donors, staying means resisting the instinct to retreat when controversy rises. It means funding long-term—supporting movements beyond election cycles, protecting leaders during backlash instead of retreating when oppositional headlines intensify.

And to our mobilizers and nonprofit leaders, I am clear that staying does not guarantee safety. It does not protect you from backlash. It does not shield you from grief. And the weight leaders to carry while strategies recalibrate is enormous. Staying can require tending ground even in spaces that are openly hostile to our existence—because the work of democracy rarely happens on neutral terrain.

For all of us, staying requires being aware of who is already holding the front lines of democratic defense and leading with courage to support them amid uncertainty. So I ask you to sit with the discomfort that staying sometimes requires of us and answer honestly:

What ground are you willing to hold?

What institutions are you willing to fortify?

And what would it mean—for you—to stay?

Sometimes courage looks like disruption. And sometimes it looks like refusing to abandon the ground where we collectively stand. The question is not whether we can burn it down. The question is whether we are willing to build something strong enough to outlast the fire.

Note:

1. I did not have permission to disclose my friend’s name—but know they are quick-witted, a wonderful artist, and in well-health.

Founded by three Black trans women in 2017, The Transgender District is the first legally recognized transgender cultural districts in the world. Located in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood, the district works to stabilize and protect transgender communities through housing advocacy, cultural preservation, economic development, and policy change.

Support their work directly here: https://transgenderdistrictsf.com/donate

Reimagining Philanthropy explores transformative and decolonized approaches to philanthropy that can shift our sector from traditional top-down models toward more equitable, community-centered practices. In community, we explore how philanthropic organizations can share power authentically, center affected communities in decision-making, and build truly reciprocal relationships.

The world is fracturing and augmenting into unprecedented and often terrifying shapes. Like a contagion, the toxic tentacles extend everywhere. We see this in the intensifying climate disasters, the rise of AI-driven conflicts ostensibly initiated in the name of peace, and the billionaires who use money to wield power, politics, and media nefariously—leading to a sweeping normalization of authoritarianism and autocracy.

As this happens, the machine of philanthropy remains tethered to decades-old logic, implementing approaches that are fundamentally unsuitable to the terrain we plough through, and causing harm to the communities it was meant to serve.

We are navigating a world order that serves the elite, instead of us all.

For those of us in the business of mobilizing and moving resources to movements building bountiful alternatives, this fracture has been our activator—we know change is still possible. Black feminists articulate a transformative vision of justice and care, creating conditions in which all people have the freedom and resources to thrive. So, with this frame we ask ourselves: What can we build after the breaking?

The opposition is organizing to mold a world in its image that in many ways upholds and further perpetuates oppressive systems; like glass, that can be shattered. Black feminists have always known that these systems never served, suited, or aided us. Generations of us, past and present, have advanced justice through local, regional, and global organizing—from resisting apartheid in South Africa, to raising political consciousness, to embracing Black feminist pedagogies. We have remained unwavering in our commitment toward justice, while nurturing healing, joy, and liberation through community-centered practices. The breaking, then, is the clearance required for new visioning and possibility.

We must ask ourselves what is possible now, and what role should leaders in philanthropy play? Here, we offer insights and tools for collective action.

The Sector Challenges We Face

We are living through a paradox of obscene wealth accumulation. Wealth is growing at an astounding rate; there have never been as many billionaires as there are today. In parallel, funding for movements on the side of human rights has flatlined or retreated.

At a time of relentless attacks on human rights and justice across the globe, many rich nations, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and the Netherlands have slashed their overseas development assistance. In 2025, human rights funding saw a 29 percent reduction from 2023’s record high of $223 billion in aid.

These resources have instead been diverted to militarization, with global military spending hitting a generational high, despite proof that local feminist movements are the most effective architects of global safety.

In the face of this collapse, philanthropy has largely capitulated. Ten percent of US foundations have deleted racial and gender justice language from their websites, communicating submission over solidarity. Funding for Palestinian or Black liberation is often policed to mitigate supposed risk by those who claim to be on the side of justice. This is not caution; it is complicity.

Among traditional institutional philanthropy, there has been no groundswell of solidarity or meaningful action for those bearing the brunt of risk and harm. In an ecosystem where funding for Black feminist organizing receives 0.1 to 0.35 percent of philanthropic funding, this retreat is a seismic abandonment.

The current global landscape—both familiar and unique—demands a new level of strategy.

Where Barriers Stand, Our Resolve Rises Higher

Amid this reticence and retrenchment, the Black Feminists in Philanthropy network (BFiP) is intervening. We are not waiting for the sector to act with conscience. We are organizing.

BFiP brings together over 350 Black women and gender-expansive people working in private foundations, feminist funds, community foundations, and wealth advisory roles around the world. Born out of the need to address the severe underfunding of Black feminist movements, we convene regularly to strategize how to resource them like we want them to win. So far, we have mobilized and directed almost $2.5 million to Black feminist groups in Sudan, Lebanon, and Brazil whose work ranges from life-saving crisis and conflict response to international advocacy for racial and gender justice.

What binds us is not just an identity, but a shared mandate to mobilize, even as some members carry the contradictions of their private institutions that are, at their core, architectures of preservation—of wealth, power, and the very conditions that make our work necessary.

Our mission at BFiP is therefore a dual excavation. While we are mobilizing resources, we are also digging into these institutions from the inside, chipping at the concrete logic of risk aversion and establishmentarianism. Together, we synthesize strategies and tactics to enable us as a network to act as absorbers, doing the translation work so social justice movements do not have to be stifled by bureaucracy. This is what solidarity looks like inside the belly of the beast.

From Insight to Impact: How We Move Forward 

As a growing network of funders and advisors grappling with philanthropy’s retrenchment while building new pathways to resource Black feminist movements, we draw from our experiences to offer philanthropy these concrete lessons for action:

• Community is the antidote. Isolation is a tool of institutional conservatism. It keeps people managing their positioning rather than pooling collective power. Finding allies inside and across institutions who share the same mandate and are willing to strategize with you is foundational to the work and this moment.

Use your position, don’t just occupy it. The language of movements and the language of philanthropic institutions are not the same. We in philanthropy must be the bridge—ensuring our partners can flourish in pursuing solutions that center justice, human dignity, and wellbeing, without being forced to flatten themselves into realpolitik by narrowing their vision for what’s possible to fit the political constraints of perceived practicality. For instance, providing flexible, long-term funding allows grassroots partners to pursue their full vision rather than requiring them to reshape work to fit short-term, politically “safe” outcomes. Bridging can take many forms, but every time we use our position to absorb that cost on movements’ behalf, we are making a political choice that counters oppression.

• Fund movements to be free, not dependent. The health of social justice movements should not be contingent on the whims of funder interests. The moment a group’s survival is tied to the continued goodwill of a funder, its mission becomes negotiable—and when resources recede, the infrastructure needed to advance change is compromised. We are living through the consequences of exactly that strategy, at scale.

We actually need funding designed to catalyze the conditions under which institutional philanthropy can become obsolete. This could look like funding that enables endowment building, investing in revenue-generating infrastructure, and other liberatory models of resourcing.

• Redefine risk. Black feminist and social justice movements are navigating shrinking civic space, invasive surveillance, climate catastrophes, and conflict—taking existential risks every day because the cost of inaction is greater than being still. Philanthropy, in its current posture, has decided that the greatest risk is reputational. On the contrary, the real risk is in abandoning social justice movements at precisely the moment when the cost of that abandonment is highest. This jeopardizes hard-won gains, widens injustice, and further enables the slide into authoritarianism.

The Urgent Responsibility to Practice Solidarity

This is a moment that requires philanthropy to come to its own front line, to be as brave as the movements it claims to support. Feminist and intermediary funds such as Purposeful and Thousand Currents, like the Black Feminist Fund, know this well.

The bravery and tenacity required have a very specific shape right now. It is not a strategy document or a rebranded commitment to equity. It is the decision to hold the line when the pressure is to retreat.

It is protecting funding relationships when partners are being targeted. It is the refusal to go quiet, precisely when movements need us to be loud.

Journalist Nesrine Malik noted that “misogyny is currency” when highlighting how White supremacy both enables and shields elites’ deplorable behavior. Widening this example, we see that tyranny is currency. In this era, power over is the only language the opposition speaks, and many progressive funders are watching this all unfold without grasping the urgency.

Funders who are afraid of undue attention are prioritizing the protection of assets for a future emergency, ignoring that the roof on the house is already gone.

This moment requires funder organizing—not acquiescing but actively strategizing how we can best flank movements and invest in the leadership that shapes new possibilities for us all.

There is hope that comes after the breaking. If misogyny and tyranny are the currency of the current order, let our unwavering determination be the counter.

Nonprofits may not see promoting voting as essential to their mission, but right now, there may be no more important civic duty. Voting is the key to keeping our democracy intact in 2026 (and 2028, and beyond). It is a civic ritual and the primary defense against political overreach, which is why trusted institutions like nonprofits are critical.

As institutions that are embedded in the communities they serve, nonprofits are uniquely positioned to meet this moment. They speak the language of their constituents, understand local barriers—whether transportation, language access, disability accommodations, voter ID confusion, or simple distrust born of past exclusion—and, crucially, are legally permitted to support voter participation.

Come November, the nation will decide whether it renews its commitment to free and fair elections.

Voter turnout matters. Authoritarian-leaning movements tend to thrive when participation is low and disengagement is high. Democracy can win when participation is broad, inclusive, and informed. Nonprofits can help by normalizing voting as part of community life—not a special event, but a shared responsibility. This does not mean telling people what or whom they should vote for—501c3s can’t promote the election of particular candidates. Rather, it means reminding them that their vote matters and countering misinformation. It means using newsletters, social media, community meetings, service interactions, and trusted messengers to keep voting visible and accessible. And compared to nonvoters, voters are more likely to volunteer, according to Nonprofit Voting’s “The Benefits of Voting,” reinforcing a virtuous cycle of community engagement.

Come November, the nation will decide whether it renews its commitment to free and fair elections. Faced with the new SAVE America Act, voting has never been more at risk—and support from nonprofits never more critical. In the United States, voting remains the legitimate antidote to authoritarian impulses, political intimidation, and the concentration of power in the hands of a few. Ahead of the upcoming midterms (and each subsequent election for that matter), the question is not whether voting matters, but whether voters will have the accurate information, confidence, and encouragement they need to participate.

Nonprofits Are Trusted Messengers in a Polarized Time

That is where nonprofits come in. Research shows that nonprofits enjoy higher levels of public trust than government institutions, media, or political parties. They are seen as grounded in community interests, mission-driven, and oriented toward service rather than self-interest. That trust matters when people are deciding whether to engage with elections or feel safe participating.

In short, nonprofits can help ensure that people do not let confusion, fear, or manipulation keep them from the polls. As the election approaches, ask: Are we fully using our community’s trust to support democracy? If the answer is no, act now.

Promoting voting is a civic and social responsibility that goes to the heart of why most organizations exist, though many don’t take part, often because they are unsure if elections-related activity will run afoul of tax regulations.

So, what is allowed under the laws that govern nonprofits? The following comes from the IRS’s webpage:

Can a section 501(c)(3) organization conduct voter registration and get-out-the-vote drives?

Yes, if they are conducted in a neutral, non-partisan manner, for example, without reference to any candidate or political party. However, voter education or registration activities conducted in a biased manner that favors (or opposes) one or more candidates is prohibited.

By helping your community register, learn, and vote, your organization strengthens democracy.

This means that nonprofit organizations may conduct voter registration drives at the office or in the community and encourage people to register to vote in person, through organizational communications, on social media, on websites, or at events.

The key requirement is that all nonprofit 501c3 voter registration activities must be conducted on a strictly nonpartisan basis. This means:

• Your activities must be open to all eligible voters.
• You cannot favor any particular candidate or political party.
• You can target eligible voters or clients in your offices, service area, or the communities where you regularly work.

Powerful Ways Nonprofits Can Promote Voting Now

Nonprofits are trusted, credible voices on civic participation. We have the opportunity—and responsibility—to ensure everyone we serve knows their voting power and can access the ballot.

By helping your community register, learn, and vote, your organization strengthens democracy. Here’s how to get started—before Election Day arrives.

1. Pick a Coordinator and Create a Plan

Assign a staff member, volunteer, or board member to lead voter engagement.

• Explicitly add voting to the agenda for your next staff or board meeting. Vote on how your nonprofit will engage and list next steps.
• Create a timeline: Send registration reminders, highlight key election dates, promote early voting, and organize Election Day outreach.
• Include civic engagement in your organization’s newsletters, flyers, client emails, and social media posts.
• Review state-specific rules through Nonprofit VOTE’s Voting in Your State.

Make your physical site voter-friendly: Hang posters, place postcards or QR codes in waiting areas, and add a line about voting to your email signature. Executive directors can also encourage staff to volunteer as nonpartisan election workers or translators—a practical and visible way to model civic participation.

2. Add Election Reminders to Everything You Distribute

Add clear, multilingual flyers that show how, when, and where to vote into every handout or packet you distribute—including meal boxes, newsletters, or event programs.

• Add your logo and a tagline like “Your voice matters—make sure it’s heard!”
• Highlight early voting windows, vote-by-mail deadlines, and links to local election resources such as Vote.org or county registrar pages.
• Have the executive director or board chair send a motivational message to staff about the importance of civic participation. Specify voting time-off policies in the message.
• If possible, show a short, engaging video (such as Nonprofit VOTE’s “Why Vote” Tool ) during a client group meeting or staff lunch to connect voting with your nonprofit’s mission and impact.

3. Educate and Empower Voters on the Process

Many potential voters stay home because they’re unsure what to expect. Help remove barriers by making voting feel familiar and accessible:

• Print or post sample ballots and polling place guides.
• Post quick facts on social media, using images or infographics, about voting deadlines, ID rules, and voting options.
• Ask specific board members to be present at your site in the weeks before the election—provide them with FAQ sheets to answer voter questions and distribute information.

Every small act of education helps—informed voters are more confident voters.

4. Share Election Day Help and Support

Be the link between your community and the help they might need on Election Day. Share these key numbers:

• 866-OUR-VOTE (English)
• 888-VE-Y-VOTA (Spanish)
• 844-YALLA-US (Arabic)
• 888-API-VOTE (multiple Asian languages)

Encourage staff, volunteers, or program participants to become poll workers or nonpartisan Election Day helpers. Nonprofits can also coordinate ride-sharing or carpools to help clients get to the polls—especially seniors, people with disabilities, or people without transportation.

Importantly, people without a permanent home can still vote. When registering, use a shelter, street corner, or park as a home address. Choose a different mailing address, such as that of a friend or a social service agency, to receive mail. For details, Nonprofit VOTE has resources on voting and homelessness.

Remember, these efforts don’t endorse candidates or parties—they simply ensure access.

5. Launch a Nonpartisan Get-Out-the-Vote Push

In the final weeks before Election Day, step up visibility. Organize a simple GOTV campaign with your staff and volunteers.

• Assign a team member to post daily countdown messages on your social media until Election Day.
• Call or text people in your network to encourage them to make a voting plan by choosing in advance when, where, and how they will vote.
• Partner with groups such as the League of Women Voters, Nonprofit VOTE, or the National Council of Nonprofits to access outreach materials and distribute them in your community.
• Invite staff, clients, and community members to share their voting stories and spotlight them in your communications to motivate others.

Nonprofits are trusted messengers. Use that trust to promote voting and help build stronger, more inclusive communities.

The SAVE America Act’s Impact on Voting

The SAVE America Act, passed by the House in February 2026, is a massive assault on voting and is being promoted heavily by Donald Trump. It would require US citizens to present documents such as a passport or birth certificate to register to vote. Research by the Brennan Center shows that more than 21 million eligible voters lack ready access to those documents. Roughly half of US citizens don’t have a passport. Millions lack access to a paper copy of their birth certificate.

The SAVE America Act threatens to disenfranchise US voters across all demographics, with a particularly severe impact on younger voters and communities of color. Millions of women whose married names do not match those on their birth certificates or passports would encounter additional barriers to casting their ballots. The legislation also requires states to submit their voter rolls to the Department of Homeland Security, where they would be subject to an error-prone citizenship-verification process.

Trump has threatened not to sign any other bills until the SAVE America Act passes, recently posting on social media, “THERE IS NOTHING THAT IS MORE IMPORTANT FOR THE U.S.A.”

Every one of the restrictive measures in the act has been on the conservative voter suppression wish list for more than 10 years, but the legislation is unlikely to pass, given the current makeup of the Senate and filibuster rules. Still, we should all be vigilant as Trump uses this as a wedge issue to impact the election. In the past, he’s urged his constituents to wait until right before the midterms to begin talking about transgender athletes in women’s sports. “Don’t bring that subject up, because there’s no election right now….But about a week before the election, bring it up, because you can’t lose.”

As November approaches, nonprofits can and should be ready to leverage their positions of power and trust to disrupt this cynical approach to elections.

Voting is not the only tool for change—but it is indispensable. In the face of rising authoritarianism, the answer is not despair or disengagement. The answer is participation. And nonprofits, as trusted sources for voters, have both the opportunity and the obligation to help lead the way.

Additional Resources:

• Nonprofit Nonpartisan Voter Engagement Toolkit (Nonprofit VOTE)
• United States Election Assistance Commission
• Center for American Progress on the SAVE America Act
• Protecting Democracy Through Nonpartisan Voter Registration (Alliance for Justice)
• Check your own voter registration statusor register to vote (Vote.org)

This story was originally reported by Kate Sosin of The 19th. Meet Kate and read more of their reporting on gender, politics and policy.

The Supreme Court ruled 8-1 Tuesday (March 31, 2026) that a Colorado ban on conversion therapy for youth violates the free speech rights of a Christian counselor, clearing the way for a practice that goes against the recommendations of every major medical association in the country.

Human Rights Campaign President Kelley Robinson condemned the ruling as “cruel” in a statement to the media Tuesday.

“Today’s reckless decision means more American kids will suffer,” she said. “The Court has weaponized free-speech in order to prioritize anti-LGBTQ+ bias over the safety, health and wellbeing of children.”

Conversion therapy is a pseudoscientific practice in which providers attempt to change a youth’s sexual orientation or gender identity, often through extremely harsh methods including acts of physical, psychological and sexual abuse against minors — electric shock, masturbation reconditioning, starvation, chemically induced nausea and hypnosis, among others.

The United Nations has deemed conversion therapy torture and recommended it be banned.  Twenty-three states and Washington, D.C., have laws banning conversion therapy for minors.

The decision comes on Transgender Day of Visibility, a global day celebrating transgender lives and culture every March 31.

Some LGBTQ+ advocates note that while the ruling favors a discredited practice, it leaves most avenues of regulating conversion therapy untouched.

“I think the most important thing to understand about the decision today is that it only takes one way of regulating conversion therapy off the table,” said Shannon Minter, legal director of the National Center for LGBTQ Rights.

Tuesday’s ruling throws out Colorado’s ban, but does not strike down bans in other states, which advocates feared could be a worst-case scenario. The case, Chiles v. Salazar, was brought by Christian counselor Kaley Chiles, who argued that the ban violated her free speech rights. Chiles says she only offers talk therapy and does not use physical interventions or prescribe medications.

The ruling does not declare conversion therapy safe or effective. It also leaves intact the ability of medical licensing boards’ to investigate conversion therapy practice as fraudulent.

Minter said in a statement that the ruling still leaves room to discipline providers in states where it is banned.

“This decision is narrowly about how conversion therapy can be regulated. It does not mean that conversion therapy is safe or legal. Conversion therapy is still medical malpractice and consumer fraud,” Minter said. “Every major medical organization in this country condemns it. Survivors can still bring malpractice and consumer fraud claims.”

Writing for the majority, Justice Neil Gorsuch argued that Colorado’s law applies beyond “physical interventions,” and restricts free speech.

“Colorado may regard its policy as essential to public health and safety. Certainly, censorious governments throughout history have believed the same,” the opinion read. “But the First Amendment stands as a shield against any effort to enforce orthodoxy in thought or speech in this country. It reflects instead a judgment that every American possesses an inalienable right to think and speak freely, and a faith in the free marketplace of ideas as the best means for discovering truth.”

The majority held that the right to free speech applies equally to licensed medical professionals as to all Americans.

As the lone dissent, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson argued that the majority “failed to appreciate the crucial context” of Chiles’ case. “Chiles is not speaking in the ether; she is providing therapy to minors as a licensed healthcare professional,” she wrote.

Neither side disputed Colorado’s authority to regulate medical treatments and providers or claimed that a state doing so is unconstitutional, she said.

“So, in my view, it cannot also be the case that Colorado’s decision to restrict a dangerous therapy modality that, incidentally, involves provider speech is presumptively unconstitutional,” Jackson added. “In concluding otherwise, the Court’s opinion misreads our precedents, is unprincipled and unworkable and will eventually prove untenable for those who rely upon the long-recognized responsibility of states to regulate the medical profession for the protection of public health.”

This is the first of three LGBTQ+ blockbuster cases before the court this term. Two others, involving transgender athletes, were heard at the same time earlier this year.

Grace Panetta contributed reporting.

In this column with NPQ, LandBack for the People, NDN Collective builds on their podcast of the same name, sharing stories from Turtle Island and beyond about Indigenous people organizing in community, advocating for social justice, and fighting for the return of Indigenous lands.

The beautiful and painful thing about organizing is that sometimes you’re part of multigenerational fights that you don’t see won in your lifetime. For many, freeing Leonard Peltier was one of those fights.

Five decades ago, Indigenous leader, activist, and revolutionary Leonard Peltier was illegally convicted of killing an FBI agent and wrongfully imprisoned for 49 years and two months. Many people who fought for his freedom passed on to the spirit world before the remainder of his sentence was finally commuted by President Biden on January 20, 2025, before Biden left office. It is one of the greatest privileges of my life that I got to see Leonard’s freedom and help carry him home.

“Thank you…for being able to fight for my freedom. But what’s more important than that is that you continue to fight for your land and to continue to fight for your people and all people.”

On December 1, 2025, NDN Collective’s LANDBACK for the People podcast released an episode on Leonard Peltier. In that episode, I interviewed Leonard himself and reflected on my lifelong relationship to his freedom—from writing him a letter at age 13 promising to fight for him, to coordinating logistics and care to get him back to his homelands at the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa in Belcourt, ND. But like many Indigenous people, my connection to him extends to before I was even born.

My grandfather, Ken Tilsen, provided legal support to members of the American Indian Movement (AIM) in the early days of its organization, and my mother, JoAnn Tall, was part of the Oglala Lakota people who invited AIM to first come to Pine Ridge during the 1970s. My parents met at the occupation and siege at Wounded Knee in 1973, and my grandfather helped found the Wounded Knee Legal Defense Committee. And so, years before I was born, my grandfather was part of the people who helped assemble the legal team to fight for Leonard Peltier.

Leonard responded to my letter all those years ago. He wrote, “Thank you, young brother, for being able to fight for my freedom. But what’s more important than that is that you continue to fight for your land and to continue to fight for your people and all people.”

Peltier’s Impact on Indigenous Organizing

As I interviewed Leonard in person for the podcast last year (an honor of my lifetime), he was generous, sharing with us details about his life beginning when he was nine years old in a boarding school in Wahpeton, ND. He described the profound cruelty he and his schoolmates experienced there, where the children were beaten if they spoke their languages or practiced their cultures. Leonard described trying to escape the school at age 10, almost drowning in the attempt—a move that he describes as his first act of resistance.

Leonard shed light on the Termination Era and Indian Relocation Act days in the 1950s and 1960s, when the United States government was terminating the federal status of federally recognized tribes in order to cut off tribal resources. They called it relocation because they were taking people from the reservation and then relocating them, which is why 75 percent of the population of Native people today live in cities. Leonard described how his reservation, Turtle Mountain, successfully resisted Termination, and, in turn, inspired hundreds of tribes to fight back, resulting in the end of Termination altogether.

Later, Leonard talked about joining AIM in the 1970s in response to witnessing police brutality against a young Native woman. He talked about how the group would go into peaceful actions that involved things like sit-ins at the Bureau of Indian Affairs—to which the cops would respond by attacking the protesters and then characterizing them as dangerous. He described how AIM functioned as a security force for tribal leaders, chiefs, and elders there to minimize harm and act as a political muscle in fights for things like housing and broken treaties.

When I thanked Leonard for his commitment and sacrifice to helping the people, telling him we wouldn’t have the Indigenous organizing foundation we stand on today without it, his response was this:

I wasn’t the only one though. I was just one of the people that took an oath to fight for the people. There was a lot of people that fought out there, gave their lives up and will probably never even be mentioned, but there was a lot of them. And I wanted to say to them people and their families, thank you. Thank you for standing up, showing me how to stand up.

The Generations Worth Fighting For

Leonard sees a clear connection between Native people of Turtle Island and the Palestinian people. In that same interview, he said:

Look what they’re doing in Palestine. They’re doing the same thing they did to us….So it hasn’t stopped and it won’t stop as long as we continue to deny these things happened. These things did happen. They did this to us. This is why we should be identifying with the Palestine people. What they’re doing to them is outrageous. It’s crimes against any kind of humanity there ever was in this world.

When I asked if Leonard had a message for young Indigenous people, he said, “If they terminate our treaties, we no longer exist. We no longer exist as a people. So, we have to make damn sure that we don’t get our treaties terminated.”

He added, “I want you to have a good life. I want you to have a better life than I had. And I want you to be able to live in freedom and everything like this. But I’m sorry to tell you this, but if you don’t get up and fight, it ain’t going to happen….You have to resist for your children and your grandchildren.”

Before the interview concluded, he offered a heartfelt message:

I won’t be around much longer, but I’m going to continue to speak this way because it’s going to be what’s going to save us from total extermination. But I know we can win….I know there’s a fighting generation behind me and I can die and pass on knowing that the resistance hasn’t stopped….That’s what I believe in my heart.

Throughout all my work, I hold gratitude for the generations before us close to my heart. For Leonard, and for all the ones who came before him. Leonard’s freedom is a testament that we have to continue to fight and rise up. I believe we can—and must—continue to resist with both love and fierceness held in our hearts.

Every philanthropic dollar is a loss. This is not a critique. It’s math.

The moment a grant leaves a foundation’s account, it is gone. There is no equity position. No convertible note. No return on capital. Philanthropy is not venture capital with a mission statement. It is money set on fire in the hope that the heat does something useful.

Yet the sector behaves as though the money might come back. Foundations impose layers of process—applications, budgets, logic models, quarterly reports, site visits, final evaluations—as if these rituals of control could somehow unspend the money if things go wrong. They can’t.

What they can do is consume a staggering share of the resources they were meant to deploy. This is drag, with a measurable coefficient. Yet nobody’s measuring it.

The Appointment

In philanthropy, the grantee writes the diagnosis, proposes the cure, submits to the panel, and waits—all on their own dime, with no guarantee of funding.

Imagine you’re sick—not dying but struggling enough that you need help. You go to the doctor. But before you can be seen, you’re told: “Write your own diagnosis. Research the treatment options. Propose a course of care. Justify it against peer-reviewed literature. Submit it to an authorization panel that meets quarterly. Wait four to six months for a decision. If approved, you’ll receive 80 percent of the treatment you requested, minus the cost of the paperwork you completed to apply. Then you’ll need to file reports proving the treatment worked in a format the insurer designed and no one else uses. If you’re managing care from multiple providers, each one has a different form and a different reporting cycle.”

That’s a grant cycle.

Every nonprofit leader knows this. It’s just another Tuesday for them. It’s the $50,000 foundation grant that required a 25-page proposal, a site visit, a board resolution, two rounds of questions, a revised budget in 12-point Times New Roman, quarterly narrative reports, and a final evaluation—all administered by a staff of three who are also running the programs the grant is supposed to fund.

The party seeking help bears the overwhelming cost of being evaluated. We would not expect the patient to do the doctor’s job and then get billed for it. But in philanthropy, the grantee writes the diagnosis, proposes the cure, submits to the panel, and waits—all on their own dime, with no guarantee of funding.

No One Rolls It and Smokes It

This is the fear that drives the entire apparatus: What if we fund the wrong grantee?

I get it. I’ve been on both sides of the table for decades as a philanthropy advisor, as a foundation president and trustee, as a nonprofit CEO, and as a funder who makes bets on people. The fear is that a grantee takes your money, rolls it, and smokes it. I say this in rooms full of program officers and people guffaw because the language is too blunt for a sector that prefers to say “suboptimal outcomes.” Everyone knows exactly what I mean, yet virtually no one can name a grantee with zero ROI. No one actually smokes it.

So, let’s do the math. You fund 10 grantees. You’re a decent judge of character and capacity—not perfect, but attentive. One of the 10 turns out to be a disaster. They misuse funds, or they simply fail to execute. That’s a real loss. Call it 10 percent of your portfolio, gone.

Now look at the other nine. In a low-drag environment—where you trusted them, gave them room, didn’t bury them in reporting—those nine got to do their work. They spent their time on programs, not paperwork. They adapted to conditions on the ground instead of performing compliance for your quarterly review. They had a greater positive impact, and did so faster, because they weren’t throttled.

And here’s the part the sector refuses to see: One of those nine—maybe one in every two or three cohorts—is exceptional. They’re not just competent, but transformative. They’re the leader who sees around corners, who builds something you didn’t know was possible, who delivers way more than what you funded. You only see this person in a low-drag environment because in a high-drag environment they look exactly like everyone else. They’re filling out the same forms, hitting the same milestones, performing the same compliance. The reporting regime doesn’t just slow people down; it flattens the distribution. It makes everyone look mediocre and calls it accountability.

Think about where the lines cross. Ten grantees, 10 units of good each, 100 total. One fails completely, making that a total loss. You’re at 90. Now run the same portfolio with 20 percent drag: no failures, but every grantee operates at 80 percent capacity. That’s 80. You prevented the disaster and still ended up worse off. The drag cost more than the failure.

Moreover, that scenario assumes your worst grantee produced literally nothing. In my experience, this is never the case. Even the disaster probably did some good, just badly. This means that the low-drag portfolio isn’t 90, but closer to 95. Against 80.

And we haven’t even talked about your best one. She wasn’t a 10. Ungoverned, she was a 14. The low-drag portfolio isn’t 95. It’s 99. The high-drag portfolio is still 80. You governed the Porsche at the same speed as the Prius and lost the gap from both ends.

Here’s the key: You have to be paying attention. Low drag doesn’t mean no engagement. It means you’re watching the work, not the paperwork, and interrogating whether your judgment about who the rock star is reflects their performance or your pattern-matching. Program officers already know who their best grantees are. They’ve always known. Low drag doesn’t eliminate evaluation. It eliminates the pretense that paperwork is evaluation.

You can’t eliminate drag entirely—but you can measure it, design for it, and reduce it.

The sector is loaded with funders who know exactly which grantee is a 10 (or a 14), yet fund them the same as everyone else. Program officers say it out loud: “We know you’re the best, but we have to spread it around.” In what other context would you say that? To your best surgeon? Your best mechanic? It’s not equity. It’s performative egalitarianism. It sands everything down, flattens the curve. It’s shaking the sugar over the whole tray instead of picking up the one extraordinary cookie and making a whole batch of those.

This is often called diligence, but for most funders it’s actually anxiety management, and they’re billing the grantee for it.

You are governing your entire fleet at the same speed, Porsche and Prius alike, because the system never let you see which was which. Everyone looks fine at 35 mph on a flat road. But you never take them up to 280; and because you don’t, you never see the Porsche redline, and you never see the low performers wheeze on the hill. The separation widens on the incline, as the strong pull away and the weak fall behind. The compliance regime doesn’t just cap your best grantees. It hides your worst ones. A system built to produce information is destroying it. And for the executive director who came into this work to go hard at something that matters—wind in her hair, open road, the whole promise of the sector—you have just told her to keep to slow, flat routes forever. Just don’t be surprised when she leaves.

The Physics

In aerodynamics, a drag coefficient is a number that quantifies the resistance an object encounters as it moves through fluid. A brick has a high drag coefficient. A teardrop has a low one. You can’t eliminate drag entirely—but you can measure it, design for it, and reduce it. It’s why cars all have sloped hoods. No one cares about the chunky trunk.

Philanthropy has drag. It is the cumulative friction between a funder’s intention and a grantee’s impact. Every step of the grantmaking process that consumes time, energy, or resources without proportionally increasing good—that’s drag.

This isn’t an abstraction. The data already exist, the sector just hasn’t named what they describe. The symptoms have been documented for nearly two decades: the Nonprofit Starvation Cycle, Project Streamline, Pay-What-It-Takes. But we haven’t named the force itself. What’s been missing is the drag coefficient.

High drag: 25-page applications, restricted funds, quarterly reports in proprietary formats, site visits that consume a day of staff time. Low drag: a phone call, unrestricted funds, annual check-ins, trust.

Every funder has a number. Most have never calculated it.

The Cost, and Who Bears It

Every dollar a foundation spends is philanthropic overhead. The sector has built an elaborate fiction in which foundation overhead is “investment in effectiveness” while grantee overhead is “waste to be minimized.” A program officer who spends three months evaluating a $100,000 grant is doing due diligence. A grantee who spends 20 percent of that same grant on the staff who administer it is being inefficient. The funder’s overhead creates the grantee’s overhead and then the funder penalizes the grantee for having it. The drag coefficient of this arrangement is recursive. It feeds on itself.

No single requirement caused this. Real estate disclosure laws work the same way: each one was a rational response to a real fraud, a real harm. And now the disclosures are so long that no buyer reads them. They click through 40 pages on Docusign, initialing documents designed to inform them, and are informed of nothing. The protection became the ignorance. Philanthropic process accreted the same way—one defensible requirement at a time—until the reporting no longer surfaces problems. It surfaces compliance. But at least in real estate, the person clicking through all that disclosure is ostensibly the person being protected. In philanthropy, the grantee bears the entire cost of a system designed to protect the funder.

The grantee writes the application. The grantee builds the budget in the funder’s format. The grantee tracks the metrics the funder chose. The grantee writes the reports. The grantee hosts the site visit. The grantee does all of this for every funder, in every funder’s format—often before a single dollar has been awarded. This is not diligence. It is a power dynamic dressed up as diligence.

And it is a regressive one. There is a difference between a funder’s stress and a grantee’s stress. The funder lies awake wondering whether she made a good bet. The grantee lies awake wondering whether he can make payroll. The compliance apparatus is built by the person losing sleep over the bet and imposed on the person losing sleep over payroll, and it falls hardest on the organizations with the least capacity to absorb it, often led by people who have been historically locked out of capital and closest to the communities philanthropy claims to prioritize. Drag is regressive by design, not by intention. That doesn’t make it neutral. It makes it invisible.

What’s Yours?

I am not proposing a universal formula, nor building an index or a rating system. I am a practitioner, not an econometrician, and I have no interest in creating another compliance tool that becomes its own source of drag. What I am proposing is a name.

Every funder imposes friction. Most did not design it. It accumulated, and now we can see it. Not every grantee needs the same coefficient—a first grant to an unproven organization is not the same as a tenth renewal to your strongest partner. The question is not whether you have drag. It is whether the drag matches the relationship. And continuing without calculating—choosing drag without naming what it costs—is no longer an oversight. It is a decision. If it’s yours, own it.

Others will take a look and realize they’ve been billing their grantees for their own anxiety, that their diligence isn’t producing better outcomes but only more paper. They’re spending 31 percent on administration and it isn’t protecting them from failure. It is the failure.

What’s the drag coefficient of your philanthropy? Your grantees already know the answer. They’ve known it for years. They just haven’t had permission to say it out loud. This gives them the language.

Originally published by PolitiFact.

A flood of recent social media posts described hormonal birth control pills as cancer causing.

“The WHO has just released a statement labeling birth control pills as a Group 1 cancer-causing agent,” one conservative commentator wrote March 8 on X. His post was viewed more than 2.2 million times.

Leading Report, a conservative account that describes itself as a “leading source for breaking news” but often shares misinformation, posted what it called “breaking news” that the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer lists birth control pills as a “Group 1” carcinogen.

That’s alarming. And it’s not entirely inaccurate — but it’s also more nuanced than what the posts say.

There’s a lot to know about birth control pills and cancer risk. Yes, scientific evidence shows that birth control pills can increase the risk of some types of cancers. Research also shows that taking the pill decreases the risk of some cancers. And although the WHO classified the pill as a cancer risk, it did so 25 years ago — this is not new. None of this means that if you’ve been taking the pill for years you’re certainly going to get cancer.

Before switching contraceptives, here’s some information to consider.

How do birth control pills work? 

The most common birth control pills use hormones estrogen and progestin to block conception. This medication is often colloquially called “the pill” and it is sometimes referred to as combined birth control pills. The combined hormones stop or reduce ovulation, an ovary’s release of an egg, and make it harder for sperm to enter the uterus and reach an egg. They also thin the uterus’ lining, making it more difficult for a fertilized egg to grow there.

Progestin-only birth control pills, also known as mini pills, work similarly but about half of people using the mini pill still ovulate.

What does the World Health Organization say about the pill and cancer? 

A 2025 WHO fact sheet on oral contraceptives described them as “one of the most effective ways to prevent unintended and high-risk pregnancies” and “a major public health achievement” that has improved women’s health and reduced maternal mortality.

The WHO also wrote that oral contraceptives have a “complex association with cancer risk.”

The International Agency for Research on Cancer, a WHO group that identifies hazards known to cause cancer in humans, in 1999 classified the pill as a carcinogen because it said there’s sufficient evidence demonstrating it causes some types of cancer.

The same year, and in subsequent reviews, the agency highlighted research showing that taking the pill can reduce the risk of endometrial and ovarian cancer.

Why does the WHO classify the pill as carcinogenic?

That WHO group’s 1999 report on hormonal contraception concluded that birth control pills containing both estrogen and progestin fall within its “Group 1: Carcinogenic to humans” classification. The agency reaffirmed that finding in 2008, when it determined there’s sufficient evidence the pills can cause breast, cervical and liver cancer.

Agency spokesperson Veronique Terrasse said the hazard classification is based on the strength of the evidence showing something causes cancer at some exposure levels or in some circumstances. But it does not say anything about specific risk, which varies depending on the exposure types, exposure levels and a person’s unique profile.

That’s how the pill wound up in the same category as other “Group 1” cancer-causing hazards such as asbestos, solar radiation and alcoholic beverage consumption. It also explains how smoking tobacco and secondhand tobacco smoke exposure are both classified as “Group 1” carcinogens.

That they share the same classification does not mean that taking birth control pills is as likely to cause cancer as regularly smoking cigarettes.

Two hazards (such as asbestos and the pill) in the same group should not be compared, Terrasse said. Such comparisons can be misleading because there is so much variety when it comes to exposure types, and personal risk levels.

What does more recent research say? 

Research since 2008 has continued to show that taking birth control pills increases the risk of certain cancers such as breast and cervical cancer while lowering the risk of others like ovarian cancer.

A 2024 Frontiers in Global Women’s Health study found that people using hormonal contraceptives, including intrauterine devices, had a higher risk of cervical cancer compared with nonusers. The study also said people taking combined birth control pills who have mutations to their BRCA1 and BRCA2 tumor suppressor genes also have a higher breast cancer risk.

That same 2024 study found that hormonal contraceptive users had a lower risk of ovarian and endometrial cancer.

What’s the best way to consider the risks and benefits, then?

Given the conflicting information, it’s important to consider the absolute health risks of developing cancer or becoming pregnant — not just the potential increased risk that comes with the pill.

The National Cancer Institute says about 0.6% of women will be diagnosed with cervical cancer at some point in their life.

That means even if, for example, the risk of cervical cancer is 50% higher for people taking combined birth control pills, that’s still a risk of less than 1%, said Liz Borkowski, deputy director at the Jacobs Institute of Women’s Health. People can also reduce their cervical cancer risk by getting the HPV vaccine and regular screening tests, she said.

Ultimately, people should consider their health and risk factors, lifestyle habits and thoughts on pregnancy when deciding what contraception to use.

“A key thing to remember about contraception is that it’s supposed to prevent pregnancy,” Borkowski said. “So people need to compare the side effects and risks of any method they’re considering against the many elevated health risks that accompany pregnancy, and factor in how well the method prevents pregnancy and how important it is to them to not get pregnant at this point in their life.”

Welcome back to Ask a Nonprofit Expert, NPQ’s advice column for nonprofit readers, by civic leaders who have built thriving, equitable organizations.

As always, this series offers Leading Edge members the opportunity to submit tough challenges anonymously and get personalized advice. In this column, we’ll publish answers to common questions to strengthen our entire community’s capacity.

In today’s issue, Rochelle M. Jerry, CFRM, answers a reader’s question about how nonprofits—and advancement leaders, in particular—should think about the role of AI with the organization processes.

Stuck on a problem? Submit your question here.

Dear Ask a Nonprofit Expert,

Every day we hear more about what artificial intelligence (AI) can do in fundraising.

So, how should I think about this as a development director?

Sincerely,

AI Intrigued

Dear AI Intrigued,

The amount of conversation about artificial intelligence in fundraising can feel overwhelming. Every week there seems to be a new platform promising to write grants, find donors, or automate stewardship. And every tech platform is rolling out a new AI feature that is supposed to help you.

Some larger institutions are even experimenting with virtual fundraising employees, complete with bios. For advancement teams already juggling multiple responsibilities, the question becomes less about what AI can do and more about what is useful.

My advice, based on what I’ve seen in my own line of work: AI should support strategy, not replace it.

Institutional advancement is built on trust, relationships, and mission alignment. AI can accelerate research and streamline workflows, but it cannot replace the professional judgment required to build authentic donor partnerships.

While some companies may promise that AI can help you find donors faster, what they won’t tell you is that it cannot build trust that inspires someone to donate.

AI should support strategy, not replace it.

Instead of chasing individual tools, advancement leaders should focus on four practical use cases where AI can strengthen development operations.

1. Prospect Research and Donor Insights
   AI tools can analyze public data, philanthropic trends, and donor behavior patterns much faster than traditional manual research. This helps advancement teams identify new prospects, understand giving capacity, and prioritize outreach.

When used responsibly, AI can significantly reduce the time spent compiling prospect lists and allow fundraisers to focus more on relationship building.

2. Grant Prospecting and Research
   AI can assist with scanning foundation databases, identifying potential funding matches, and summarizing funder priorities. This is particularly helpful for small development teams that do not have dedicated research staff.

Organizations should be cautious about tools that promise fully automated grant writing. Grant proposals require deep alignment with organizational programs, impact data, and the priorities of the funder. That still requires human expertise.

3. Content Drafting and Communication Support
   One of AI’s most practical uses in advancement is assisting with first drafts of content, such as donor emails, stewardship reports, or event invitations.

Used well, AI functions like a writing assistant. It helps teams move faster while still allowing development professionals to refine language to ensure authenticity and mission alignment.

4. Workflow Automation and Data Management
   AI can also help development teams automate repetitive administrative tasks such as summarizing donor meetings, organizing notes, or generating draft reports from CRM data.

These efficiencies can free advancement staff to spend more time where it matters most: building relationships with donors, volunteers, and community partners.

Do the Tools Help or Hamper?

Before adopting any AI platform, advancement leaders should ask three key questions:

• Does it save time on administrative tasks?
• Does it improve donor insight or strategy?
• Does it protect donor data and confidentiality?

If the answer to those questions is unclear, the tool may be adding complexity rather than value.

AI is not a replacement for advancement professionals. It is a productivity partner. The organizations that will benefit most from AI are those that use it intentionally to strengthen research, streamline operations, and support the human relationships that make philanthropy possible.

Successful fundraising will always depend on what technology cannot replicate: trust, storytelling, and meaningful connection. And as your organization explores new AI tools, do not forget to develop and follow a clear AI policy that protects donor data, guides ethical use, and ensures technology supports your mission rather than distracting from it.