AFP Position Statement: Protecting Philanthropic Independence in an Era of Political Pressure: A Call to Donor-Advised Funds and the Philanthropic Sector

Disclosure: The Fidelity Charitable Catalyst Fund and the Vanguard Philanthropic Impact Fund are supporters of the AFP Foundation for Philanthropy. AFP's position on this matter was developed independently and reflects our long-standing commitment to nonprofit independence and donor rights. We have disclosed these relationships in the interest of transparency.

The World We Are Working Toward

AFP envisions a philanthropic ecosystem in which the act of giving — once a donor has made a considered, values-driven decision to support a nonprofit — is structurally protected from political interference. A world in which donor-advised funds serve as stable, reliable vehicles for honoring philanthropic intent, regardless of the political climate surrounding the organizations donors choose to support. The federal indictment of the Southern Poverty Law Center illustrates precisely the gap between the sector we have and the sector we need — revealing how well-intentioned policies at our most valued institutions can be exploited as instruments of political pressure without those institutions having any such intent. This statement expresses our aspirations for the sector, and opens a conversation we believe the philanthropic community must have. The record raises concerning questions.

When existing policies can be turned against the very sector they were designed to protect, it is time to build something stronger — together.
- Art Taylor, AFP President & CEO

How Good Policies Were Turned Against the Sector

Fidelity Charitable, Vanguard Charitable, and DAFgiving360 each applied existing grantmaking policies designed in good faith to protect platform integrity when a grantee faces criminal charges. These policies exist for sound reasons, and in most circumstances serve their purpose well. AFP does not question that principle.

What this situation reveals is something more specific: that policies calibrated for ordinary indictments may be inadequate when the indictment itself appears to be the political act. When charges arrive in a climate of documented official hostility — revived after being closed, announced with rhetoric more suited to a campaign than a courtroom — applying a standard grantmaking pause may produce an outcome no one intended. The DAFs were not architects of a political outcome. They were instruments of one.

The indictment can become the punishment. In cases where political motivation is plausible, a funding pause may allow a political actor to achieve a desired result without ever prevailing in a courtroom — immediately and for years, regardless of the ultimate legal outcome.

Donor intent is caught in the crossfire. Account holders who designated gifts to organizations under similar circumstances as the SPLC find their philanthropic decisions suspended not by any finding of wrongdoing, but by the automatic operation of policies never designed for a moment of political prosecution.

The watchdog sector is most exposed. Organizations that hold government and power accountable are precisely those most likely to be targeted by a politically motivated prosecution. Civil society cannot perform its watchdog function if that function can be defunded by the very actors it exists to scrutinize.

Questions for the Sector

AFP does not presume to answer these questions — we raise them because they can no longer be deferred:

For DAF sponsors: Should a platform be able to consider the circumstances that led to a charge? When the prosecution itself appears to be the political act, should platforms have the ability — and the standing — to weigh the relevant factors that preceded the indictment before automatically suspending donor intent?

For philanthropic institutions and foundations: If funding is withdrawn in the face of a politically charged indictment, what signal does that send — to this administration, to future ones, and to the organizations whose independence the sector depends on? Is that the signal we intend?

For the broader nonprofit sector: This case involves the SPLC, but the principle belongs to all of us. If philanthropic independence can be disrupted through political prosecution regardless of mission or ideology, what is our collective responsibility to respond?

For policymakers and the judiciary: When documented political hostility precedes a federal indictment of a civil society organization, what mechanisms exist to ensure prosecutorial motivation is examined transparently — and are those mechanisms sufficient?

Others Have Spoken

AFP is not alone in these concerns. Independent Sector has called the indictment federal overreach with a chilling effect on advocacy organizations. The Nonprofit Alliance has warned the precedent will outlast any single administration. The National Urban League has condemned it as an attack on the civil rights movement. The San Francisco Foundation has committed to continuing DAF grants to the SPLC. The NAACP Legal Defense Fund has called on the federal government to protect civil rights rather than act as an instrument of intimidation. AFP adds its voice to this chorus — not as a partisan act, but as a defense of the structural independence every nonprofit depends upon.

Conclusion

The SPLC case will resolve in the courts on its own legal merits. What will not resolve on its own is the vulnerability it has exposed. AFP raises these questions in a spirit of good faith — recognizing the difficulty of the position DAF platforms find themselves in, and hoping that this moment becomes an opportunity for the sector to reflect and ultimately strengthen the independence that charitable giving depends upon.