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Stacy Palmer

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27
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2025-03-11
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2025-03-11
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  1. I think as long as we continue to have nonprofits that are willing to work collectively to make a difference, that does make me optimistic because sometimes nonprofits just worry about their own communities, their own causes, their own coffers, and don't take collective action. But if they will come together and continue to do that and stay strong, that could make a big difference.

    2025-03-11 · Masters of Scale · Nonprofits navigate Trump’s drastic funding cuts, with The Chronicle of Philanthropy CEO Stacy Palmer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  2. Is this haphazardness? And what one said, who is a very strong conservative said, we've just never seen something this nasty, the anger, the kind of feeling that none of this aid matters, it's deeply disturbing to people really of any ideology because they don't see that there is an ideology. They want to talk about what is the view of government. There can be robust debates on that, but this seems unprecedented to the people who have watched this over a long period, which is making it hard to have a playbook. And I think that's why nonprofits and foundations are struggling is what do you do when you can't look to history and you have to figure out all fresh what's happening and how to come together.

    2025-03-11 · Masters of Scale · Nonprofits navigate Trump’s drastic funding cuts, with The Chronicle of Philanthropy CEO Stacy Palmer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  3. Some of my colleagues have asked me that very question is this precedent because we've been covering this area, you know, since 1988. And so they figured I would be the person to ask and to know. And at first, I said, oh, absolutely unprecedented. And then I said, wait a minute, I want to check my facts and turn to the experts who I would turn to as a reporter and ask them that question. The Reagan administration is the one that comes closest because there were these very serious cutbacks and there was this whole discussion about what is the role of philanthropy and what is the role of nonprofits and how should we do it. So we have asked experts about what kinds of things they have to say. I have two conservatives and two liberals who were involved at that moment who were working in the nonprofit arena and they all agreed it was unprecedented. And the reason they said that

    2025-03-11 · Masters of Scale · Nonprofits navigate Trump’s drastic funding cuts, with The Chronicle of Philanthropy CEO Stacy Palmer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  4. Cover the kinds of issues that the administration doesn't like. We've certainly seen with the associated press that the unwillingness to talk about the Gulf of America rather than the Gulf of Mexico has caused them problems. Well, how long until that trickles into the nonprofit journalism organizations that have tax-exempt status? I don't think any of us are going to stop covering things the way we cover them and that we believe in what we do, but we do know that there are some risks.

    2025-03-11 · Masters of Scale · Nonprofits navigate Trump’s drastic funding cuts, with The Chronicle of Philanthropy CEO Stacy Palmer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  5. One of the reasons we became nonprofit is we thought it would enable us to do a whole lot more innovation. There's been tremendous growth in nonprofit journalism organizations. And when I told my staff that we were doing this, I said, you know, this is where all the cool kids are now. And this gives us an ability to really think differently about how we do journalism and how close we are to our readership. Do we worry about the same kinds of things our readers are going through? Absolutely. I think we feel more a sense of purpose. Our newsroom has been reinvigorated by the challenge of covering all these stories. I think they're also exhausted, but they definitely need to cover these things. And I have talked to other nonprofit journalism leaders who are concerned that this administration's hostility to the press could be a problem for tax-exempt status. Organizations that

    2025-03-11 · Masters of Scale · Nonprofits navigate Trump’s drastic funding cuts, with The Chronicle of Philanthropy CEO Stacy Palmer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  6. Often what does happen, and it'll be interesting to see what the federal government workers who are laid off do, they are very public service oriented. They know some of the kinds of things that are needed to do good, and they may think that they have great ideas, the private philanthropy may want to support. Let me try the nonprofit route rather than saying, let me go work for a nonprofit that does similar things. I'm going to go on my own. Those organizations don't usually do all that well and they don't necessarily survive, but I wouldn't be surprised if we see a wave of that. And it's possible a few of them will have brilliant ideas that solve problems in new ways. But right now, I would not advise anybody to start a nonprofit.

    2025-03-11 · Masters of Scale · Nonprofits navigate Trump’s drastic funding cuts, with The Chronicle of Philanthropy CEO Stacy Palmer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  7. Nonprofits did not come into this crisis with a lot of reserves. COVID really hit most of them very hard. There was federal government money infused into many organizations. All of that has dried up. Inflation has led to amazing increases in all the amounts that we pay for more goods and services as individuals. Well, a nonprofit food bank, for example, is paying the same kind of increase in dealing with it. Nonprofits aren't on the strongest footing even before all of this stuff happened. And now some of them will not be able to make payroll. So those are the organizations that I'm worried about that could really just disappear in the next few weeks.

    2025-03-11 · Masters of Scale · Nonprofits navigate Trump’s drastic funding cuts, with The Chronicle of Philanthropy CEO Stacy Palmer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  8. It's the hyperlocal organizations that don't have the resources to really spend time, they don't have the money to spend on lawyers. They're responding to immediate needs. They may not have the best information about all of the kinds of things that are happening. It does mean sometimes they just pull back entirely and say, we can't do this. This is going to get us in trouble. We're going to cut those programs and we'll do only the kinds of things that are really safe. Other organizations will be scrappy and courageous and do things that they believe that they need to do. They probably will make some language changes.

    2025-03-11 · Masters of Scale · Nonprofits navigate Trump’s drastic funding cuts, with The Chronicle of Philanthropy CEO Stacy Palmer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  9. I think that some, I know pretty much every foundation we've talked to said that they're looking at every word on their website and seeing whether there are trigger words, just as you see in the federal government. Lawyers are reviewing absolutely everything a foundation does to make sure things are okay in the absence of really clear guidance from the administration, you can imagine why that's taking a really long time. But it is not leading anybody to move quickly.

    2025-03-11 · Masters of Scale · Nonprofits navigate Trump’s drastic funding cuts, with The Chronicle of Philanthropy CEO Stacy Palmer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  10. Confusion is that there's no real philosophy to say, you know, we've evaluated this program and it's not working, so we're going to end this one. But this one's doing great work in education, let's say, and we're going to put more money into that, or at least not cut it. Something that is a more systematic evaluation based on evidence and results, do the research to say, is this program making a difference? And is it making a difference in the short term, in the medium term, in the long term? Is it really changing lives? Or do we need to change course, do something differently, end it? How do we think about that? So if government wanted to invest in that, it could say that program's more effective than something else. Let's give there. But that's what we're not seeing.

    2025-03-11 · Masters of Scale · Nonprofits navigate Trump’s drastic funding cuts, with The Chronicle of Philanthropy CEO Stacy Palmer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  11. Especially the cuts that were being made to international development that were really leading to deaths of children, there is certainly a lot of people saying Elon Musk, you could, you have the resources to help stave that off. Do you really want to be starving people around the world? That's not a good look.

    2025-03-11 · Masters of Scale · Nonprofits navigate Trump’s drastic funding cuts, with The Chronicle of Philanthropy CEO Stacy Palmer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  12. But both President Trump and Elon Musk have had issues in philanthropy. I think we all remember that President Trump was stripped of his ability to run a foundation because he was not doing a good job or an ethical job of that. We learned about that during the first Trump administration. Eli Musk has said he's putting money into his foundation, but we can't find evidence of what it's going to and what it's doing. Very small amounts are. But compared to what other people with resources are giving in terms of percentage of assets or disclosing where the money is going, we are not able to track it. And I have not seen any evidence that very many of the other reporters who are investigating are deeply trying to figure out where do those dollars go, given the extent of wealth that he has. Certainly a lot of concern that

    2025-03-11 · Masters of Scale · Nonprofits navigate Trump’s drastic funding cuts, with The Chronicle of Philanthropy CEO Stacy Palmer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  13. Well, first of all, let's talk about him as a philanthropist, but he is also, you know, along with President Trump, said some of the most destructive things about nonprofits themselves, that they are horrible organizations that are just sleazy and just trying to make money off of things like homelessness. So there's been a lot of nonprofit bashing by both Musk and Trump. And that's incredibly damaging if they don't believe in the value of these organizations. It's going to cause damage in the short term in terms of resources. But if you are a young person trying to decide where you are going to have a career, if you were motivated to want to be a nonprofit or philanthropy worker, why would you do that after somebody has made it sound like it's the dirtiest profession ever rather than a call to public service?

    2025-03-11 · Masters of Scale · Nonprofits navigate Trump’s drastic funding cuts, with The Chronicle of Philanthropy CEO Stacy Palmer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  14. I think the biggest cuts that we've seen are in diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. So, you know, a lot of corporations, everyone will remember after George Floyd, almost every company in America announced a commitment to say that it was going to do more, both through philanthropy programs and to support black-owned businesses. Most of those commitments have been ratcheted back. Now, you see some examples of companies that say, uh-uh, we're not going to do that. we're going to keep our programs we're expanding and we're going to stay strong but for the most part you know you see companies like walmart have cut back on some of their grants some of their commitments and so i think we're going to probably see more of that happening quietly corporations care deeply about their relationship with the government and so right now if they don't think the mood is good for supporting some things that are unpopular with the administration they're going to cut back

    2025-03-11 · Masters of Scale · Nonprofits navigate Trump’s drastic funding cuts, with The Chronicle of Philanthropy CEO Stacy Palmer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  15. Right, right. And some donors also want to stay out of the political fray as much as possible. So they're thinking about that calculation too and thinking about what's most important to them. They are also very concerned that they may become targets. So some of them are giving anonymously. They're often pooling their fund so that it will come from a donor collaborative, a group of people rather than any one individual that then could be targeted.

    2025-03-11 · Masters of Scale · Nonprofits navigate Trump’s drastic funding cuts, with The Chronicle of Philanthropy CEO Stacy Palmer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  16. And so they'll ratchet it up to sort of six or seven percent. Some nonprofits are saying, wait a minute, this is a time of crisis. It needs to be 10%, 15%. And there's a precedent for that in that during COVID, we saw really tremendous need and a very swift response from many philanthropies, many big donors to say, we get it. We need to give more right now. And so there's a giant call from nonprofits to say we really need you to start giving generously right away.

    2025-03-11 · Masters of Scale · Nonprofits navigate Trump’s drastic funding cuts, with The Chronicle of Philanthropy CEO Stacy Palmer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  17. Yeah, there's a great reset that's going on, even amid this lack of information. So, you know, I know, especially at research universities, for example, all those cuts you've heard about it, National Institute of Health, National Science Foundation, those kinds of things, those are big drivers of the funding to those kinds of institutions. That might mean tuition increases. They might not be able to give as much student aid. They're going to have to figure out how they make their budgets. Many of them have come to very immediate halts. They're all reviewing their spending. I don't think if you're on a university campus, you can spend a dime now without checking to be sure that it's still okay to do that. And some foundations have already stepped up and say they're going to distribute more funds. So the MacArthur Foundation said it would increase the amount. It would distribute over the next few years. Several other foundations are doing it. Foundations are only required to give 5% of their assets every year.

    2025-03-11 · Masters of Scale · Nonprofits navigate Trump’s drastic funding cuts, with The Chronicle of Philanthropy CEO Stacy Palmer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  18. Of them are looking out for their own business interest. Some of them are just not aware of all the problems on the ground. That's one of the difficult things about philanthropy is that you don't necessarily see billionaires giving to the local food bank. They just don't know the scale of the problems. So those are the organizations that suffer. You'll see big gifts perhaps to the well-known institutions, Harvard and MIT will probably continue to get donations, but will the community groups get it if we leave it to the billionaires? Probably not.

    2025-03-11 · Masters of Scale · Nonprofits navigate Trump’s drastic funding cuts, with The Chronicle of Philanthropy CEO Stacy Palmer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  19. Not, I think there could be a shift in, you know, the proportion for sure that comes from wealthy individuals. And so there are some ways to go at it. I think even the biggest defenders of government would say there are some programs that aren't really as efficient as they ought to be. And it's time to reexamine this. I think everybody's open to that, but it's this haphazard not very thoughtful way of doing it that's causing a problem. Philanthropy can't know how to step in in this case. Now, you know, you see people like Michael Bloomberg stepping in and giving to the World Health Organization as soon as those cuts were made. So some of these things are beginning to happen. But whether somebody like that could sustain all of the federal government's contribution is a question. The other thing we have to think about is, do we want the billionaire setting the agenda? Some of them are very well intentioned, but some

    2025-03-11 · Masters of Scale · Nonprofits navigate Trump’s drastic funding cuts, with The Chronicle of Philanthropy CEO Stacy Palmer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  20. At their doors. So the scale of what philanthropy can do versus the federal government is really important to understand. Now, that's not to say that philanthropy can't pick up more. has been enormous run-up in wealth as we all know there are many billionaires who could give very generously and make a difference so nonprofits are certainly calling on them to do more and calling on the nation's foundations forward rockefeller all the names that you all know asking them to step up but it would be foolish to think that any private entities can make up for what the government's doing

    2025-03-11 · Masters of Scale · Nonprofits navigate Trump’s drastic funding cuts, with The Chronicle of Philanthropy CEO Stacy Palmer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  21. One of the things that people don't really understand is they see billionaires who are incredibly wealthy and they see them giving away money, people like Bill and Melinda Gayes, Warren Buffett. And the dollars are striking. They're more than any of us could think about giving. But they are tiny compared to what the federal government spends. You know, the Gates Foundation could spend all of the money in its coffers, and it would just keep government operating maybe for a day. It's just the scale is quite, quite different. So it's very important to understand the role that government plays. And it's twofold. One is direct funding of nonprofits. The second is when the federal government and the state and local governments pull back, there are more people in need. That means they turn to nonprofits for extra help. So often what happens in these cutbacks is not just that the nonprofits lose the support they need to provide services, but they have more people.

    2025-03-11 · Masters of Scale · Nonprofits navigate Trump’s drastic funding cuts, with The Chronicle of Philanthropy CEO Stacy Palmer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  22. Yes, absolutely. We knew that things were going to be different than they were in the first drunk term, which really rattled nonprofits in a lot of ways. But it was clear this was different. The part that was most striking to me was how quickly nonprofits responded. They took the federal government to court right away. They worked through the night as soon as they heard about it. They were taking action. That is incredibly unusual in the nonprofit world. And honestly, you know, they work in the arts. They work in the environment. They work in religion. They don't always have coalitions that are very strong and agile. But in this case, they did, and they were quickly able to persuade the courts to say, wait a minute, halt. This is not something that really conforms to the law. And so far, they have had quite a few victories in court. There's still more to come, but they have been winning.

    2025-03-11 · Masters of Scale · Nonprofits navigate Trump’s drastic funding cuts, with The Chronicle of Philanthropy CEO Stacy Palmer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  23. Some groups, even though a court said, you know, the money has to keep flowing, they say that the money isn't flowing and that they've suffered freezes, environmental groups, for example, say that they can't figure out what's going on with their banks not releasing the money to them. And so there have been disputes over that. So it's not that no aid is flowing. I think some is, but it's in no organized way that you can figure out why is it coming from some agencies and not. And when you think about it, all the federal workers who have been laid off, those are the people who would turn on the spigots and make sure that things are flowing and happening. Well, you can't call the person in the federal government who you used to call. They're not there anymore.

    2025-03-11 · Masters of Scale · Nonprofits navigate Trump’s drastic funding cuts, with The Chronicle of Philanthropy CEO Stacy Palmer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  24. Talked to several grant makers who said that the first request they're getting for extra funding is to beef up security and that organizations that deal with the most controversial issues, immigrants, LGBTQ rights, those kinds of things feel threatened. They say that they're concerned about doxing and I don't have any examples, but I can't tell whether they're withholding the examples because of fear.

    2025-03-11 · Masters of Scale · Nonprofits navigate Trump’s drastic funding cuts, with The Chronicle of Philanthropy CEO Stacy Palmer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  25. Charge and we should be organized about how we think about that. This all seems very random. It comes, it goes, it means that nonprofits can't make payroll. It means that foundations can't figure out what the smartest strategy is to do. So it's a pretty rough time in the nonprofit and foundation world.

    2025-03-11 · Masters of Scale · Nonprofits navigate Trump’s drastic funding cuts, with The Chronicle of Philanthropy CEO Stacy Palmer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  26. Nonprofits and foundations are mostly terrified for a lot of different reasons. One is about just the philosophy of cutting off this aid. One is about the direct impact on their organizations. The other is that there's fear for the safety of their staffs. A lot of concern about whether all of this targeting of nonprofits might lead to physical or cybersecurity or other kinds of threats. So I would say most people in the nonprofit world are in a very bad state worse than I've seen before in my history of covering these organizations and worse than it was in the Reagan administration when we saw a lot of cuts. Even the conservatives who feel strongly about cutting government and see that there's waste are very upset about the fact that this seems so haphazard that there's not a philosophy of the idea that we should ask philanthropy to take up the

    2025-03-11 · Masters of Scale · Nonprofits navigate Trump’s drastic funding cuts, with The Chronicle of Philanthropy CEO Stacy Palmer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  27. We've just never seen something this nasty the anger, the kind of feeling that none of this aid matters. It's deeply disturbing to people, you know, really of any ideology because they don't see that there is an ideology if you were motivated to want to be a nonprofit or philanthropy worker why would you do that after somebody has made it sound like it's the dirtiest profession ever rather than a call to public service?

    2025-03-11 · Masters of Scale · Nonprofits navigate Trump’s drastic funding cuts, with The Chronicle of Philanthropy CEO Stacy Palmer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT