We deserve better, so let’s build it.

I refuse to accept that the choice is between working within broken institutions or abandoning the work altogether.

One of my recent Substack notes has gained a lot of attention over the past month. I shared my grief about being laid off, losing nearly everything I had built in my twenties, and spending 10 months unemployed. This journey helped me find my way back to writing and inspired the creation of philanthropy unfiltered.

Several people commented on the note, offering words of encouragement and gratitude for feeling seen as they navigate similar situations. However, some other comments were more heartbreaking:

• “I’ve been consistently treated like absolute garbage by nonprofit HR depts. Ghosted after several rounds of interviews over and over. Last minute cancellations of final interviews without any explanation or follow-up. These are for nonprofit organizations with websites filled with flowery words about respect, kindness, compassion, and making the world a better place, treating people in survival mode like they aren’t worthy of basic human decency. Employment candidates are treated like stock. Like non-people. You don’t matter.”

• “I also lost my job at a shady nonprofit (ultimately a money laundering scheme led by a false pariah womanizing health guru) and am now on my ninth month of applying and interviewing for a new job.”

• “I voluntarily left my job in philanthropy last year (without having anything lined up). Seeing the harm an organization that claimed to espouse racial equity caused so many Black women, myself included, has not only changed my view about philanthropy in a negative way, but it’s helped me realize the sector perpetuates the very systems it claims it wants to dismantle.”

• “The nonprofit world is a dirty dirty game”

Since starting my Substack, I’ve received messages like these, both publicly and privately. It saddens me, but also reassures me. I’m not alone in my feelings about nonprofits and philanthropy. I’m not the only one who can see the contradictions within these institutions that work so hard to hide them.

My inbox feels like a confessional, with people opening up about the demoralization and institutional betrayal they face. From program officers to digital organizers and communications strategists to development directors, they are all individuals who entered this work with a sincere commitment to social change and now see that the organizations claiming to advance justice are often the same places where justice is lost.

What affects me even more is how similar the stories are. Different organizations, but the same patterns of harm. The same gap between stated values and internal governance structures. The same heartbreaking realization that the organization you believed in, the mission you dedicated yourself to, was never what it claimed to be. And perhaps most painfully, the same sense of isolation, the feeling that you can’t speak openly about what you’ve experienced without risking your reputation or your ability to pay your bills.

This is what I think about when people ask me why I started philanthropy unfiltered. I think about this when I’m awake at 2:48 in the morning, drafting an essay. I think about the people who have trusted me with their stories, who have said, “Yes, this is what I experienced too,” and those who have found relief in knowing that the contradictions are real and that their perspectives matter.

Photo by Lori Morgan Gottschling.

My work goes beyond managing my editorial calendar in Asana or obsessing over my subscriber count (though I think it’s pretty damn cool that over 4,200 of you care about what I have to say). What started as a space for me to vent about the issues I’ve experienced and observed in my decade-long career has grown into a platform where I can speak my truth and share realities that seemed to have nowhere else to go.

It’s a space where people can openly name what they’ve been through. It’s about building a collective understanding of harmful patterns not as isolated incidents of dysfunction, but as part of how the nonprofit industrial complex operates. And it’s about refusing to let these institutions off the hook for the harm they cause just because of all “the good” they do on the surface.

And even though this work has given me a sense of reclamation, it remains heavy. Every message I receive adds another person’s pain to hold. While I appreciate that people trust me with their experiences, I also feel the weight of that trust. What should I do with these stories? How can I honor them? How can I turn individual experiences of harm into collective understanding and, ultimately, into opportunities for change?

These are the questions I’ve been contemplating as I think about the future of philanthropy unfiltered in 2026 and beyond. When I started this newsletter, I mostly wrote about my personal experiences. I was processing my layoff, understanding what I had observed over the years, and trying to turn my anger into some form of analysis. But as my audience continues to grow and my inbox fills with others’ stories, the work has expanded beyond being about me.

Now, it’s about all of us.

I believe the most anchoring thing during this season of reflection is realizing that most of my audience isn’t actually the people running these institutions. I’m not writing for presidents and CEOs. Should I focus on targeting them more specifically? Maybe. But I write for people like those who responded to my note.

I’m writing for support staff who are exhausted and fed up but haven’t yet found the words to describe what they’re going through. I’m writing for those who left the sector and are still processing the harm they experienced. I’m writing for organizers and activists who have always doubted the nonprofit model. I’m writing for anyone who has ever felt gaslit by an organization that preaches values it doesn’t practice.

I write to say: you’re not alone. I see it, too.

This understanding of my audience has clarified what I need from this work moving forward. I need it to be sustainable—not just financially, though that matters too—but emotionally and intellectually sustainable. I must show up to this work with energy and focus, not resentment and exhaustion. I should incorporate practices of rest and renewal so that critique alone doesn’t overwhelm me. I should remember that while identifying contradictions is necessary, it’s not enough on its own. I also have to point toward what else is possible, toward the models and practices that might offer us a way out of these extractive patterns.

I try my best to be 50/50. Half of the time, I challenge the systems and powers as they are now. The other half, I offer solutions and more liberating ways forward. Sometimes, my emotions get the best of me, though. I’m still figuring out what it means to hold space for collective grief and outright rage while also nurturing hope and imagination. I’m still learning how to balance the urgent need to name harm with the equally urgent need to protect my own well-being.

Photo by Lori Morgan Gottschling.

All that to say, I want everyone reading philanthropy unfiltered to know this work is for people who believe another way is possible. It’s for those who refuse to stay silent about the harm they’ve seen and who are dedicated to building something better, even if we don’t know exactly what that looks like. It belongs to everyone who entered this work with a heart of service and still believes in the possibility of collective liberation, even when the institutions around us have failed to deliver it. It belongs to those who are tired but not defeated, critical but still hopeful.

We can’t build a better future by ignoring the contradictions. We need to be honest about our experiences, about what these institutions really do versus what they claim, and about how the nonprofit industrial complex confines movements rather than empowers them.

And then we must continue moving forward. We should ask ourselves: What would organizations truly dedicated to justice look like? How would they allocate resources? How would they make decisions? How would they treat their staff? How would they prioritize the communities they serve? What does it mean to build institutions that embody the values they promote externally? If we are serious about creating alternatives, we must have clear answers to these questions.

James Baldwin once said, “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” I don’t expect my writing to change the world or overturn the entire nonprofit industrial complex built across decades of labor exploitation and wealth concentration. However, I believe my contributions can make a small but meaningful difference. I refuse to accept that the choice is between working within broken institutions or abandoning the work altogether.

Looking back at that Substack note about my layoff and everything that followed, I realize now that this entire journey has been an invitation I didn’t even know I was giving, encouraging others to share their truth and stop carrying the burden of navigating these institutions alone.

I believe in social justice and want to be in community with others who are willing to do the hard work of challenging these systems and building something better. This space is becoming much bolder in the new year as we continue to name what’s broken while imagining what’s possible, documenting harm while working toward healing.

Together, we can carve out a new path rooted in our steadfast commitment to the liberation we all deserve.

That’s why I write. I encourage us to turn inward, to examine how we participate in and sustain these contradictions. To honestly face ourselves in the mirror and commit to building the alternatives we know are possible.

Photo by Lori Morgan Gottschling.

---