Philanthropy Won’t Save Democracy—People Will

The announcement that the MacArthur Foundation will deploy $100 million to support pro-democracy organizations should be welcome news. At a moment when democratic institutions are under sustained and coordinated attack, more resources are needed.

Sadly, the details of the announcement reveal a dangerous truth: The money is supporting the same institutions, strategies, and actors that helped get us into this crisis in the first place.

For decades, the defense of American democracy has been outsourced to a familiar network of large, well-funded non-profits—501(c)(3)s and 501(c)(4)s—that operate within tightly constrained legal and cultural boundaries.

These organizations produce reports, run voter education campaigns, and advocate for incremental policy reforms. They are comfortable in conference rooms, on panels, and in grant applications, but are structurally ill-equipped to confront a movement that is increasingly willing to ignore norms, weaponize disinformation, and mobilize federal power in our streets.

Meanwhile, the organizations and movements operating outside the traditional non-profit framework—the groups organizing protests, applying direct pressure to elected officials, and engaging people who have long been excluded from formal political processes—are dismissed as too risky, too unstructured, or too difficult to measure. They don’t fit the non-profit mold, but they’re also the only efforts that match the scale and intensity of the threat, which is aggressive, adaptive, and increasingly unconstrained by law or precedent.

That exclusion is clear: Two major pro-democracy summits have occurred over the past year, one organized by RepresentUS and the other by Democracy Forward. Neither of them invited representatives from the grassroots organizing communities driving the movement on our streets.

That isn’t an accident. It’s a function of how the nonprofit sector is designed. 501(c)(3) organizations are legally prohibited from engaging in partisan political activity. 501(c)(4)s have slightly more flexibility, but they are still constrained by donor expectations, board governance, and a general culture that prioritizes reputational management over disruption.

These structures reward stability over urgency, incentivize consensus over confrontation, and systematically exclude the kinds of tactics that have historically been necessary to defend democracy in moments of crisis: Mass mobilization, sustained public pressure, civil disobedience, and direct action.

In my recent writing in The Fulcrum, I argued that the nonprofit sector isn’t failing because of bad actors, but because it is doing precisely what it was designed to do: To represent problems rather than solve them. Their incentive structures reward perpetuation: After all, representing the right problem can yield years of fundraising and job security, with incremental progress serving as enough justification for continued support.

When philanthropic institutions direct the vast majority of their resources to the same established organizations, they’re not just making a funding decision, they’re making a strategic choice about how democracy will be defended.

Right now, that choice is to double down on a model that has already proven insufficient and at times has felt complicit in normalizing rising fascism by institutionalizing the “both sides” myth.

Beyond that, the organizations that dominate pro-democracy funding today often lack the countercultural legitimacy required to reach the most politically volatile and consequential demographics in the country—young men.

Over the past decade, many young men have drifted away from traditional civic institutions and into alternative media ecosystems shaped by figures like Nick Fuentes, Joe Rogan, and Charlie Kirk. Whatever one thinks of these figures, they have succeeded where institutional nonprofits have failed by speaking in a language that feels authentic, unfiltered, and rebellious.

By contrast, much of the nonprofit sector communicates in a tone that feels scripted, cautious, and disconnected from reality. It isn’t just that the message isn’t landing—it’s that the messenger lacks credibility.

Reconnecting these young men to democratic participation in a healthy, constructive way requires more than fact-checking and civic education campaigns. It requires cultural fluency, a willingness to engage in contested spaces, and the kind of on-the-ground organizing that builds trust over time. 

It requires people who are willing to meet them where they are—not where a grant proposal assumes they should be—and to inspire them to evolve through countercultural legitimacy.

This is precisely the kind of work that grassroots, street-level organizations are uniquely positioned to do. Unencumbered by the same institutional constraints, they can operate with speed, authenticity, and a tolerance for risk that traditional nonprofits simply can’t match. They can experiment, adapt, and engage directly with communities that have been written off not because they aren’t consequential, but because they simply refuse outreach from the old guard.

By concentrating resources in institutions that are structurally constrained from taking the kinds of actions this moment requires. philanthropy is effectively disarming the pro-democracy movement and the powerful countercultural forces it has engendered.

It continues to ask organizations built for stability to respond to instability; incrementalists to confront extremism; and bipartisan structures to account for one party’s descent into madness.

The rise of fascism in the United States of America is no longer a possibility. It is our reality. In this environment, caution isn’t prudence—it’s complicity.

The MacArthur Foundation’s $100 million commitment could be a turning point, but only if it signals a willingness to break from the patterns that have defined pro-democracy funding for years. Otherwise, it will be remembered as yet another well-intentioned investment that failed to meet the moment.

Democracy will not be saved by the same strategies that normalized its downfall. It will be saved by people—organized, mobilized, and unafraid to act. 

The only question is whether our political institutions are willing—and able—to adapt.