The First Amendment Won’t Save Big Philanthropy
Don’t miss my latest piece in The Giving Review on the ideology hiding in direct mail.| responsive.substack.com
Don’t miss my latest piece in The Giving Review on the ideology hiding in direct mail.| responsive.substack.com
In May I argued that direct mail didn’t just raise money. It became one of neoliberalism’s handiest tools, reframing collective struggle as a private transaction. It didn’t kill the civic imagination; it domesticated it, shrinking our sense of what participation should mean. What once felt like building movements was replaced with a transactional spirit where growth looked like success but connection became an afterthought. And while many of my colleagues want to keep debating the merit...| responsive.substack.com
Fundraising has long been preoccupied with the ask.| responsive.substack.com
In two weeks I’ll be back in the classroom introducing a new group of students to the nonprofit sector.| responsive.substack.com
Last month, I suggested we’re in the midst of a reckoning our sector’s narrators don't want to see coming. They’re not helping us face the system’s unraveling; they’re trying to manage the disruption without surrendering control. They’re still clinging to the tools, institutions, and authority of a system that’s plainly falling apart. What they offer is just enough change to preserve their standing, but not enough to reckon with what truly needs to be rebuilt. Yet many of us can...| responsive.substack.com
This is part one of a three-part series on fundraising’s original sin.| responsive.substack.com
This is the last in a three-part series on reclaiming the ethic of the gift in contemporary fundraising.| responsive.substack.com
In the past few weeks, I’ve read a number of pieces from those trying to make sense of this moment for the rest of us.| responsive.substack.com
This is the first in a three-part series on reclaiming the ethic of the gift in contemporary fundraising.| responsive.substack.com
Last evening, I took John Palfrey’s “courage is contagious” hashtag to heart and decided to challenge him on some of his statements about philanthropy.| responsive.substack.com
Last week, I poked fun at an increasingly familiar group—let’s call them the Nice Guys of Philanthropy. Understandably, they have a lot to say about where institutional philanthropy finds itself right now—and they’ve got plenty of boosters ready to cheer them on for their bold takes. They’re easy to spot: white and about ten years older than me, they grew up in blue counties, went to elite schools, and built the kinds of résumés guys like me weren’t exactly meant to have. Despit...| responsive.substack.com
