I Read the Room, But the Room Also Needs Fixing

Our resistance to the opposition will only be as strong as our willingness to confront the truths we avoid in our own institutions.

I promised myself a break this week, but even in stillness, some words insist on being written. I’ll keep it brief.

I’m sure that some folks might think that I should do a better job at reading the room. The Trump administration literally has the philanthropic and nonprofit sectors in shambles. Nonprofits are facing financial uncertainty due to federal cutbacks, civic activity continues to be repressed, and the House recently passed a bill to increase taxes on philanthropic efforts (to name a few implosions).

So why would I, at a time like this, be critiquing philanthropy and the nonprofit sectors when Trump-era politics are back in full force, and so many of us are working triple time just to hold the line?

Well, if there’s one thing I’ve realized after having several months to sit and reflect while being laid off, it’s that our resistance to the opposition will only be as strong as our willingness to confront the truths we avoid in our own institutions.

The call for transformation and reform should not and cannot be one-sided. I no longer want to stand by and allow us to focus so much on fighting external battles that we ignore the harm happening in our own spaces. When survival is the only thing we’re reaching for, there’s no room left to imagine something better, let alone build it.

This moment demands more than solidarity statements and performative activism. If our sectors are truly about impact, about people, about justice, then this is the exact moment to ask the hard questions. The external attacks only amplify the urgency to look inward. If we’re not willing to examine our internal contradictions, how can we claim to be defending something worth protecting?

I speak honestly and challenge us not because I want to tear us down, but because I care and believe we can be more than just the image we project. We spend so much time fighting harmful institutions, while too often replicating the same harm within our own. It’s one thing to point to the government’s constant failure to serve the common good. It’s another to ask whether we’ve held ourselves to the values we expect from them—fully, courageously, radically, and without compromise.

I won’t stop questioning what we’ve accepted as normal. Not now. Not when the stakes are this high. Enough people are shouting outwards. I want to be someone who reminds us to look within, too.

We absolutely must keep fighting the forces determined to burn us down. But I won’t pretend the foundation hasn’t already been cracking.

So, don’t worry. The room has been read. Thoroughly. But I’m also looking at the roots, unearthing what’s been buried. If we don’t get honest about what’s been growing beneath the surface, no amount of PR or rapid response to Trump’s attacks will save us. If we don’t confront our own complicity, we’ll also be responsible for our own downfall.

This work is a labor of love, a love that demands we hold ourselves to the same standards we set for others. And we deserve sectors that love their people more than they love their own image.

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