Foundation Leaders Archives

Health Care Donors Urged to Take a Stand Amidst Ongoing Funding Cuts

Editor’s Note: As a healthcare provider myself, this statement from Cara V. James, President and CEO of Grantmakers in Health, struck a deep chord. Now is the time for funders to do what they can to mitigate the damage of the US government’s extreme and unprecented withdrawal of funding for health.

Cara V. James, President and CEO of Grantmakers In Health and former Director of the Office of Minority Health at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), urges health care funders to take action to protect health care nationally. (Image Credit: GIH)

This week marks 100 days since the start of the current administration. In that time, we have experienced a wave of harmful policies; devastating funding cuts; significant federal workforce reductions; and direct threats to freedom of speech, democracy, and the rule of law. As a country, we have witnessed the use of unlawful executive actions to intimidate, restrict, or punish organizations for addressing important societal challenges. While much remains uncertain, it is clear these changes will not make us healthier, and they threaten the foundation of our democracy. In the end, it is people—especially the most vulnerable—who will suffer the consequences.

How Trump’s Tax Policies Decreased Philanthropic Giving

According to the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), signed into law in 2018 eliminated incentives for charitable giving for about 20% of US taxpayers.

One of the signature moves in the act was to increase the amount of the Standard Deduction to $25,000, which more or less doubled the threshold for itemizing deductions.

Taraji P. Henson has been given the AARP Purpose Prize. Read more below. (Image credit: Boris Lawrence Henson Foundation)

Overall, the reform decreased charitable giving by about $20 billion annually.

While many middle-class taxpayers give to charity such as a church, most are not able to give enough to put them over the threshold for itemizing deductions. In effect, the TCJA eliminated the incentive for making these donations. For middle-class taxpayers, this eliminated the incentive to give money to charity since these donations could no longer be used for itemized deductions from annual income tax payments.

Leaders Fight for Feminist Giving in Congress with First-Ever Hill Day

“The power imbalance in philanthropy—often maintained by those without intimate knowledge of a community’s historical context, the needs on the ground, and the most urgent issues—spurs activists in marginalized communities, especially Black women and girls, to call for more input in determining what should be prioritized, how it should be funded, and who gets the money.” This is the opening paragraph of Feminist philanthropy: Dismantling silos and raising long-term funding (link).

Advocates at WFN’s first Hill Day included Monica Ramirez, Genisus Holland, Jocelyn Frye, Latanya Mapp-Frett and Fatima Goss-Graves. (Image credit: WFN)

Feminist giving, especially that focusing on women and girls, and especially women and girls of color, faces a dilemma. On one side, traditional philanthropic organizations are often hampered by a “white savior” mindset and scrutiny from the patriarchy; on the other, Black women face access issues, and are often not granted adequate trust to control large gifts.

Ellen Burstyn’s Lasting Legacy as a Philanthropist for the Art of Acting

Ellen Burstyn has attained the pinnacle of success in the entertainment world. She has received numerous accolades including an Academy Award, a Tony Award, and two Primetime Emmy Awards. She is one of only 24 people who have won all three awards, known as the “Triple Crown” of acting.

Ellen Burstyn (Image credit: Marco Grub)

And Ellen Burstyn is also a philanthropist. Her most lasting legacy may not be so much about what awards what she has gotten, but what she has given back. Burstyn has been a member of the Actors Studio in New York City for most of her life and has been a co-president of the Actors Studio for over twenty years. She was instrumental in founding the Actors Studio Master’s program, an MFA degree track (currently hosted at Pace University) that offers tracks in Acting, Directing, and Playwriting for promising young artists.

New Labor Supply to Help Keep Philanthropy Women Running

Hello Feminist Giving friends! This week at Philanthropy Women brings some exciting news for us. As it turns out, a male ally to gender equality givers is retiring after 33 years as a business analyst, and he is going to be joining us as a writer at Philanthropy Women. This new writer and thinker will be adding fuel to our fire as the only funding news outlet in the world exclusively devoted to women. And who is this exciting addition to our team?

Philanthropy Women founder Kiersten Marek with her husband, Kevin Marek, who has retired after 33 years working in the business world. (Image credit: Kiersten Marek)

Why, it’s none other than my husband of over 25 years, Kevin Marek! As of May 26, he will be taking off the corporate shackles and rejoining the rest of the world to pursue all of his many interests and hobbies, and one of those interests is in being a male ally to the cause of gender equality.

Fighting the Tide of Women Being Taught Not to Love Themselves

Greetings and welcome to Philanthropy Women! It’s Kiersten Marek here, the founder and editor of PW. Today there are many new happenings I want to share with you from the feminist giving realm, but first I want to take a moment to acknowledge an issue that has caused difficulty for us as a publication: the phenomenon of feminist givers being taught not to love themselves, and to see funding news about their work as an indulgence.

feminist giving realm — Feminist Funded ’23 is now taking registrations for its next conference which will be in September 2023. (Image credit: Women’s Funding Network)

As women, broadly speaking, we are taught not to love ourselves, to discredit our own work, and to downplay our own accomplishments. One of the reasons I started Philanthropy Women was because I wanted to reverse that trend — to make it possible, and, dare I say, easy, to feel good about yourself as a funder of gender equality.

Women’s Philanthropy Via the Inclusion, Equity and Diversity Lens

Women’s Philanthropy thought leader, Kathleen Loehr, is retiring. In a truly unique model of legacy, she is leaving her papers and research to the Women’s Philanthropy Institute (WPI) at Indiana University. And, she’s leaving her exclusive methods, treasured insights and archive to me and seven other hand-selected women she has chosen to continue living out her legacy and growing Women’s Philanthropy: The Women’s Philanthropy Alliance.

Yolanda F. Johnson shares a bullet point list of strategies to make sure your women’s philanthropy has a DEI lens. (Image credit: YFJ Consulting)

I am honored to be a part of this elite group of industry experts and thought leaders on Women’s Philanthropy, and I will do my best each and every day to make Kathleen proud. My journey thus far is a personal one, which led me to understand how, even as an expert in DEI for Philanthropy and a philanthropist myself, I had somehow compartmentalized gender along the way. The danger here is that if I can do it, anyone can, and so I vowed to craft my work in Women’s Philanthropy in the most impactful way as possible.

Feminist Giving In the News: Top 10 Women’s Funding Countdown

This batch of feminist funding news spans from state-based government funding for childcare workers (brilliant stuff!) to ten new additions we have made to the funders listed in our Gender Equality Funder Database. Enjoy!

Lauren Y. Casteel, President and CEO of The Women’s Foundation of Colorado. (Image credit: WFC)

1: Women’s Foundation of Colorado Makes Goal of 100% Gender Lens Investable Assets

“As the only community foundation in the state focused on gender, racial, and economic equity, it was time to unapologetically integrate all assets of our operation and programs around our goals to ensure the success of our strategic framework,” said Lauren Y. Casteel, president and CEO of The Women’s Foundation. “We are proud to align our money with our mission, and to use all of our available resources to maximize donor impact.”

Jamie Allen Black: The Loneliness of the Trust-Based Funder

Editor’s Note: The following opinion piece is from Jamie Allen Black, CEO of the Jewish Women’s Foundation of New York, in response to a recent opinion piece from Jeannie Infante Sager.

As Jeannie Infante Sager, director of the Women’s Philanthropy Institute, points out in her recent Philanthropy Women article, MacKenzie Scott, the world’s most famous female philanthropist, has embraced “trust-based” philanthropy.

Jamie Allen Black, CEO of the Jewish Women’s Foundation of New York, raises important questions about relationship issues related to trust-based philanthropy. (Image credit: Jamie Allen Black)

Yet the conversation about Scott leaves one fascinating thing unsaid: She’s female and a philanthropist, but she doesn’t give like a female philanthropist.

Why We Were So Easily Fooled by Hugh Hefner + Feminist Giving News

Hello there, my philanthro-friends. Welcome to another week of feminist giving updates, as well as other revelations in the world of gender equality news.

playboy feminist giving — Holly Madison, former girlfriend of Hugh Hefner and creator and star of Girls Next Door, discusses her diagnosis of Aspergers in Secrets of Playboy, and how she was drawn to living at the Playboy mansion early on because it gave her a sense of community. (Image credit: Secrets of Playboy)

This week, I did it. I binge-watched the first six episodes of Secrets of Playboy on A&E.

I did it for a lot of reasons. First, because I care about women, especially women who have survived trauma and are trying to make peace with that trauma and with the world that allowed it to happen.

Category: Foundation Leaders