In this blog post, Interim Co-CEO Maegan Scott reflects on the history and strategy that brought the country to this verison of authoritariansim and calls on philanthropy to be clear on what is required in this moment to both protect people and build the future where everyone can thrive.

By Maegan Scott, Interim Co-CEO

Let’s be clear about the moment we are in.

What we are witnessing is more than a routine federal retrenchment, or a familiar shift in political priorities. It is an overtly authoritarian project—one that relies on strategic disinvestment, rampant state violence, and the deliberate abandonment of entire communities to consolidate power.  It’s important to recognize that these government attacks on people and communities are not new.  From slavery to the violent rollback of Reconstruction, from redlining to mass incarceration, deprivation has never been accidental. It has been racialized, intentional, and enforced through violence—sometimes spectacular, sometimes bureaucratic, often both.

What is different now is not the strategy, but the stripping away of pretense by our government. History tells us exactly how this works: federal resources are withheld, redirected, or weaponized not because they are unavailable, but because scarcity itself is the tool. Starving communities of housing, healthcare, legal protection, and basic stability weakens their ability to organize, resist, and imagine otherwise. Fear does the rest. Yet, despite this, we still witness philanthropy acting in ways that ignore this reality and continue to operate as if this is a temporary bug instead of an intentional feature of a country rooted in racism and white supremacy. 

This is not the system failing. It is the system working as it was built and now we are all witnessing its clear purpose. And that clarity creates an opening for philanthropy to clarify its own purpose. 

A Reckoning with Philanthropy's Historical Role

For years, philanthropy has relied on a basic truth to shield itself from these harsh realities: that philanthropy cannot replace government funding. This remains true. But it has also become a convenient way to avoid a much harder reckoning. The real question is not whether philanthropy can provide an adequate substitute for the state. The question is whether philanthropy is willing to fundamentally change when the state itself becomes a primary, unabashed, source of harm.

Authoritarianism does not require the support of philanthropy. It only requires philanthropy to remain careful, incremental, and managerial while the rules of the game are being rewritten. It requires funders to stay the course, and prioritize procedural legitimacy over moral clarity. It requires us to behave as though this moment is an interruption, and that normalcy will return.

But moments like this are not interruptions. They are revelations. They ask: What is this sector actually for? Who does it exist to protect? And what kind of future is it willing to resource into being?

If we’re being honest, philanthropy’s dominant operating model was never built for this level of confrontation with power. Short grant cycles, narrow issue silos, rigid compliance, and a preoccupation with risk and control might make sense in a world that assumes tomorrow will look roughly like yesterday. Under authoritarian pressure, they collapse. They fail us completely. 

The Opportunity of Now for Philanthropy — It's Time to Choose

Here is the opportunity this moment offers: to stop funding as if we are managing decline, and start resourcing as if we are building a future that we can’t yet grasp but know is better and freer than this. 

That requires a different posture entirely. It requires philanthropy to move from risk avoidance to purpose alignment. From fragmented interventions to sustained commitment. From funding programs to backing people, and movements, and ecosystems, with the endurance to outlast repression. It means funding long-term organizing, legal defense, rent support, food assistance, mutual aid, narrative power, and community-led solutions—not as emergency exceptions, but as core strategy. It means loosening restrictions that limit imagination and speed. It means resourcing (and trusting!) those closest to harm not only to survive, but to lead.

This is not about heroism or saviorism. It is about choosing sides in a moment when resources will either reinforce oppression or underwrite liberation. This is one of those moments that strips away illusion. It asks whether philanthropy is capable of imagining a future beyond the systems that are actively harming us—and resourcing that future as if it matters. Not in theory. Not someday. Now.

Philanthropy has a choice. It can respond as it is designed to do, and hope that history will mistake its restraint for responsibility. Or, it can meet this moment with the courage to fund survival, resistance, and the possibility of something better. Because authoritarianism thrives when imagination collapses. And justice has never advanced without people willing to resource what does not yet have permission to exist.

The future will not be funded by accident. It will be funded—or abandoned—by choice.

Maegen Scott is the Funders Together for Housing Justice interim Co-CEO and founder of Wayfinding Partners. With over 20 years of experience across philanthropy, nonprofit leadership, and coaching, Maegan is committed to racial equity, systems change, and liberatory practice. Her work blends organization development, critical race theory, and healing practices to support individuals and institutions in aligning values with action. She has consulted and facilitated nationally and internationally, including with philanthropic leaders and mission-driven organizations across sectors.