Opinion: Nonprofits must prepare for De Tocqueville’s last stand

Alexis de Tocqueville first remarked on the vital role nonprofits played in strengthening American democracy and providing for the well-being of all its citizens. Almost 200 years later, the nonprofit sector is one of the few examples of American exceptionalism still standing: one of the rare American things that remains the envy of the world and should make all Americans proud. But Feb. 6’s memorandum – Advancing United States Interests When Funding Nongovernmental Organizations – is a wake-up call that the administration’s threat to the nonprofit and philanthropic sector is far graver than we imagined. This is not merely the attack on “progressive” nonprofits and funders, previewed in the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025; it represents an opening salvo in what could be a broader existential assault on the entire sector.

Let’s be clear: Trump holds the nonprofit sector in outright contempt. There is no record of him ever serving on a nonprofit board, volunteering his time, or engaging in any form of civic or charitable life. He shows no interest in any major category of nonprofit work. Arts and culture? He doesn’t attend the theater, never suggests that he reads books, and attacks the press. Education? His primary contribution was launching a fraudulent for-profit venture (Trump University). Environment and animals? He rolled back environmental protections, denied climate change, and is the first president in more than a century to have never even had a dog. Health? His record includes stripping funding from medical research, sabotaging the ACA, and bungling the COVID response. human services? Born with a silver spoon in his mouth, he has never benefited from any element of the welfare state (other than corporate welfare in the form of the Section 1031 like-kind exchange and other real estate-related tax handouts), and he shows no empathy for Americans that do. Public and societal benefit? He openly despises civil rights organizations and disdains philanthropy.

At a deeper level, the fundamental principles of the nonprofit sector - public purpose, pluralism, and the prohibition on private inurement - are antithetical to his worldview. (His commitment to private inurement runs so deep that he used the Trump Foundation assets for personal benefit and was forced to pay a $2 million penalty.) He surely believes that anyone who works for a nonprofit is a loser, an incompetent, or a Marxist who should get a “real” job. (I expect he sees the staff of the Heritage Foundation and the Federalist Society as flunkies as well, despite his current dalliance with these erstwhile conservative organizations).

Beyond ideology, there is a clear political incentive to replace nonprofits with lower-quality, higher-cost for-profits where possible. Authoritarians seek to eliminate any independent countervailing sources of power and resistance, and nonprofits are difficult institutions to control. They are numerous, decentralized and difficult to shakedown for tribute since they are legally barred from making political donations. By contrast, corporations dependent on government contracts are easy to control and a reliable source of uncapped – thanks to the Citizen’s United decision – campaign contributions.

Finally, the recent memorandum directing that federal spending be aligned with the “goals and priorities” of the administration is likely a trial balloon that, if not immediately shot down, might foreshadow challenges to the very tax-exempt status of such disfavored organizations.

In the face of this unprecedented challenge, this not the time to sit back and dispassionately calculate how many nonprofits might go bankrupt because of a funding pause. This is not the time to guess how many might be on the administration’s naughty list. This is not the time to seek cold comfort in the hypothetical obstacles that acting on the memorandum might face. This is the time for action. How many of the tens of millions of Americans donating to, employed by, volunteering for, or benefiting from nonprofits will rise to the challenge? How many will organize, protest, and risk arrest? We have strength in numbers, but do we have the courage? Will we put up a fight or surrender with little more than a whimper? We may find out soon enough.