John Palfrey will not be obeying in advance.
At a moment when leaders of tech companies, law firms, media corporations and academic institutions have bent the knee to Donald Trump, the president of the John D and Catherine T MacArthur Foundation insists that charitable organisations choose resistance over capitulation.
“We have an opportunity to unite and advance,” Palfrey said last week. “There’s a chance here for us to stand together on a series of very important bedrock principles, and do so with linked arms, and do so in such a way that allows us to serve every community in America in a way that will ensure a strong republic for years to come.”
Trump’s return to power has been described as an authoritarian power grab, rewarding compliance and punishing dissent. The Facebook chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, ABC News and Columbia University ceded ground or surrendered. Several major law firms offered almost $1bn in pro bono work to curry favour.
But this week Harvard, the oldest and wealthiest university in America, pushed back after the Trump administration cut $2bn of its federal grants, earning praise from the former president Barack Obama. Sixty current and former university presidents co-signed an editorial in Fortune offering support.
Philanthropic organisations could be next in the firing line. The MacArthur Foundation, founded in 1978, funds work in fields including social justice, climate change, criminal justice reform, journalism and media, community development and international peace and security. It has assets of about $7bn and is known for bestowing annual “genius” grants on artists, actors and other creative people.
Palfrey recently authored a joint article with Tonya Allen of the McKnight Foundation and Deepak Bhargava of the Freedom Together Foundation warning that charitable organisations could be the next institutions under attack, and announcing a public solidarity campaign to support philanthropy’s freedom to give. More than 300 organisations have already signed on.
The trio wrote: “We’ve seen this before in American history and across the globe. Weaponized oversight. Intimidation dressed up as transparency. It is not new. But our response must be: we in the philanthropic community must not wait like sitting ducks.”
Speaking via Zoom from the MacArthur Foundation’s headquarters in Chicago, Palfrey, 52, explained that he felt it important to clearly state the need to preserve freedom of speech, freedom to give and freedom to invest – core to the work of a philanthropic foundation.
“It’s important to draw some bright lines at this point and say these are lines that need not to be crossed,” he said. “For me, the first amendment is a very good guide to that. I like to think about American history and 1776. That’s a point in our history when we decided as a country that we didn’t want kings and we decided to fight a revolution on that.
“We decided we wanted the rule of law, not the rule of one man, and we decided, as we set up our constitution, that the first thing we would enshrine is the right of free expression. All of those are bedrock principles of what it means to be in the American republic, and I think it’s important for us to state those things clearly and plainly at this moment.”
After three months back in office, Trump has invited comparisons with the “electoral autocracy” that is Viktor Orbán’s Hungary. With bewildering speed, he has cowed Congress, attacked judges and defied their orders, deported immigrants without due process, sought to intimidate the free press and attempted to impose his will on universities and cultural institutions such as the Kennedy Center.
Palfrey, a student of history, warned: “If where we are headed is on the model of Hungary, we are going to see a repression of civil society that will not be good for communities across America. I don’t think we should go in that direction as a country.
“We have the opportunity to adjust our course. I hope very much that our leaders will decide not to repress civil society in a way that constrains freedom of speech, and this is a good time to say that’s not the direction that makes sense for America.”
Does he worry that the US is sliding into authoritarianism? “I’d rather not find out.”
The country still has a powerful story to tell, he insists. “I very much hope that those of us who have the right to speak freely, as we do in America, will do so. It’s one of those things: you have to use it or lose it. Communicating who we are as a people and continue to be as a people is very important as a message to ourselves and to the rest of the world.”
The MacArthur Foundation has supported organisations that work in 117 countries and has offices in India and Nigeria. Meanwhile, Trump’s ally Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, has denied food and medicine to the world’s poorest people by gutting the development agency USAID.
Palfrey said: “We’re a funder that is predominantly giving money in the United States, but we do have work outside the US. There are, of course, questions about [if] the rest of the world [can] count on the United States as a charitable partner – and that question is up in the air at the moment.”
In the meantime, Musk and his so-called “department of government efficiency” have slashed and burned through federal departments, firing thousands of workers with little rhyme or reason. The pain is being felt in international development, scientific research and struggling communities. It has made charitable foundations’ work all the more urgent.
Palfrey describes such work as fundamentally non-partisan, helping people in every district in the country. He said: “There is so much need in communities right now. Some of it does of course have to do with cuts to federal funding.
“Let’s imagine for a second that you’re a cancer researcher and you’re saving the lives of small children who are getting cancer and your funding has just been cut. If you are an organisation that funds cancer research, your money is needed more than ever, so we need to step up.”
The MacArthur Foundation will increase its giving by more than 20% for 2025 and 2026. “I don’t believe that private philanthropy can make up for all of the cuts that are under way in the United States and around the world, for that matter, but I do feel like we can and should do more, and this is what we’re called upon to do in this moment.”
Palfrey’s joint article warns that philanthropy is often slow by design, but time is a luxury it cannot afford. He urges organisations to speak in plain language, not the “philanthropy speak” for which they are notorious, and hold the line. He hopes that other sectors will join in demonstrating that courage is contagious.
“I’d love to see the business community say: this is what’s super-important to us, and this is how we’re going to come together around it. I’d love to see universities and colleges do the same and say: this is the essential bedrock that we need to be able to maintain. That is available to every group in America and very much in the spirit of our country. [It] is how we come together around shared ideals.”
