Shelterforce

06/05/2025

I’m often asked, of all the threats to the nonprofit sector, what concerns me the most? My answer is—silence.

In this moment, with the onslaught of threats against civil society, what concerns me most is the silence of too many leaders, too many organizations.

Too many organizations are letting fear guide their actions. Too many are assuming if they stay very still and quiet, they won’t become a target of this vindictive administration.

Not only is that, in my view, morally suspect, given the work so many of us do; it’s also bad strategy.

If we are a nonprofit organization, we are a target of this administration. And, to paraphrase Audre Lorde, our silence won’t protect us. If there’s protection to be had for our sector, we’ll find it through visibility and solidarity. We’ll find it by being vocal about the threats, and united in our defense of the sector.

And the good news is, courage is contagious. So is hope. After we filed that first lawsuit, I can’t tell you how many people reached out to say they felt hope again for the first time in weeks, that the lawsuit broke through a deepening sense of dread and hopelessness they had felt following the dozens of harmful executive orders issued on Day 1.