How NY nonprofits are regrouping under Trump’s attacks

Donald Trump has continued to rattle the nonprofit community - from a slew of grant freezes leading to a storm of nonprofit-led lawsuits to sweeping restructuring efforts to remove DEI language. As these gridlocks in recent weeks leave the future of many nonprofits at risk, experts of New York’s philanthropic community are moving to strengthen management efforts and board relationships. 

At New York Nonprofit Media’s 2025 BoardCon, held at EmblemHealth in Lower Manhattan Thursday, industry leaders, management experts and board members gathered to discuss bsest practices to strengthen, regroup and stabilize industry members amidst the changes impacting the nonprofit sector.

Panelists covered a range of issues from strategic governance, tightening legal responsibilities, investing in better financial tools, and increasing engagement and diversity in the boardroom. 

Karen Ignagni, president and CEO of EmblemHealth, one of the city’s largest nonprofit insurers, opened the event on the importance of collaboration among different levels of leadership. 

“We think that we together are the cornerstone of New York's communities,” Ignani told attendees. “We understand how vital the collaboration is between boards of directors and executive leadership for this success of mission driven organizations.”

“Personally, I've just transitioned to be our executive chair, so I have a foot in both sides of our organization, so a dog in each of the fights, so to speak,” Ignagni added. 

Bringing panelists from both sides of the fight, strategy experts and board members shared insight on how management can touch base and learn to grow from either end of a nonprofit organization. From being in alignment with a nonprofit’s mission to being fully aware of the demands of board membership, panelist Ramon Peguero, president & CEO of the Committee for Hispanic Children and Families, urged board members to proactively engage in meetings with executive leadership. 

“I would say to board members, when you receive from your CEO, your ED material, read it. Make sure that you're ready for that board meeting, because it is very obvious sometimes to a CEO that you're not paying attention,” Peguero said. “So be prepared. I think that that makes you in a better position to give advice and consent to your CEO if you just read the material.” 

Panelists also warned of conflict of interests, especially when board members have financial interests in providing certain opportunities, such as property leases, to nonprofits. Robust reviews of bylaws was also stressed by Marnie Berk, director of pro bono programs at the New York Lawyers for the Public Interest – especially for newly minted board members. 

“So the bylaws are the Bible. You become a member of the board, you read the Bible again and again, because that is really what sets forth, what the board is allowed to do, and how far that authority extends,” Berk said. “So often when we have clients who come in and we draft those bylaws, we include provisions that allow for committees and that's important. It should be in the bylaws.” 

In doing so, board members can direct their input in some of the nonprofit’s decision-making without overstepping the boundaries of executive leadership. Experts also stressed the critical importance of key financial oversight for an organization’s long-term sustainability – such as prioritizing transparency, tightening programming to remain faithful to a nonprofit’s vision, in addition to financial tools tailored to the size of the organization. 

On the topic of employee engagement, panelist Mark Dungan, vice president of nonprofit at USI Insurance Services, encouraged more training for senior leadership. 

“I think we need to be focusing on our senior leadership and making sure that they're getting trained on how to manage the people that they're working with, because that relationship that your senior leadership has with their frontline workers and your frontline staff is going to have probably the greatest impact on employee engagement,” said Dungan. 

In thinking critically about intentionally implementing diversity, equity and inclusion agendas, experts pointed to using board matrices to recruit diverse board members and retaining them to enact visible changes in the cultural framework of nonprofit organizations. Moderator Lew Zuckman, executive director of SCAN-Harbor stressed the importance of choosing board members from diverse economical levels, in addition to drawing members from the communities served by organizations. 

“For me, outside of the question of targets and percentages, what DEI has always been about is dignity. It is about working people, whether regardless of your race, your gender, your disability status, your gender identity, your sexual orientation, panelist Nick Brasse, chief of staff of Volunteers of America - Greater New York, told the audience. “It is people in the workforce demanding dignity in the workforce and leveraging their power to set standards and asking companies to adopt that.”