What Makes the Nonprofit & Philanthropic Sector so Toxic, Part 3: The Gilded Age Problem

I’ve been watching the HBO series The Gilded Age lately (yes, I know I’m late), a period piece on New York’s high society in the late 1800s. Many of the ultra-wealthy White women characters of the show engage with charity work to move up and improve their social status, using fundraisers and balls as opportunities to invite other well-to-do women into their homes and claim a sense of power in an otherwise patriarchal world.

I was reminded of these connections between the wealthy and charity work most recently with the REFORM Alliance’s annual casino night gala. Founded by Meek Mill, Jay Z, and others to advance criminal justice reform, the organization made waves when it first launched and continues to with its high-profile fundraisers.

Most notably at this year’s event, Jay Z and Beyoncé were spotted at the same table as Ivanka and Jared Kushner. Many asked how the Carters could share space with them, but after more than a decade working across nonprofit, philanthropy, and education, it was a familiar sight to me.

When I look at the scene of the two families, I’m reminded of the inner workings and power dynamics of this sector. When money is the unifying factor, it’s customary (and even necessary) for people across ideological beliefs and values to occupy the same space. But the more important story, the one often missed in the shadow of headlines and gossip, is what happens to those with less power — the staff, the advocates, the directly impacted people — while the political theatre carries on at the donor table.

Prioritizing donor interests is how toxicity takes root

When organizations are beholden to the whims and wishes of their wealthiest contributors, their interests take priority in shaping how the organization operates. That reality has deep cultural consequences.

I once coached a client who was struggling with the harmful culture at a philanthropic institution and feeling the disconnect between a mission centered on justice and what her actual experience was. What struck me was how she, a coordinator at the time, was boxed in on a daily basis and told what she could and could not do, not because of legal or programmatic limits, but simply because a donor said so.

When the only voices given the microphone are the ones holding the purse strings, it results in staff being disempowered, the communities who are supposed to be served tokenized, and “reform” bending to the comfort level of the wealthy.

The nonprofit sector’s Gilded Age

The REFORM gala, with its celebrity and political fanfare, could easily have been a scene out of The Gilded Age. And not much has changed since that actual time period. Then, wealthy women used charity to climb social ladders. Today, the ultra-rich use philanthropy to mold their reputations and continue to grow their power and influence. And nonprofits allow it, because their survival depends on who’s willing to cut the biggest check.

This dynamic is more than optics and is not accidental — it’s structural. When the presence of a Kushner next to a Carter is normalized in the name of “bipartisanship” or “bridge-building,” it sets the tone for the whole organization. Staff are expected to tolerate the tension between mission and reality because “that’s just how it is.” Communities are expected to celebrate reforms that never threaten the system too deeply, because those reforms are what donors will pay for.

Whose values matter?

The nonprofit sector loves to say it is values-driven. But what values are we modeling when we allow justice work to be defined by who can buy a table at a gala? What message does it send when the same people whose politics criminalize our communities get to shape the very institutions claiming to serve them?

This is the rot at the core of nonprofit culture: a dependence on donor dollars so deep that mission and people are always negotiable. And it trickles down: Staff learn to silence themselves. Leaders learn to bend to power. Impacted communities learn that their liberation is always contingent on someone else’s comfort and pockets.

REFORM Alliance isn’t unique or exceptionally wrong in their doings, either. The same story plays out in organizations across this sector, from small nonprofits to billion-dollar foundations. But if we are serious about justice, we must tell the truth: donor-centered models of change are not sustainable.

Justice requires a redistribution of power, not just an increase of charitable dollars. It requires centering the people most impacted, even if it makes the people holding the checkbooks uncomfortable. And it requires nonprofit leaders and staff to stop normalizing toxicity as “the cost of doing good.”

If The Gilded Age teaches us anything, it’s that charity has always been a tool of the elite. Our task is to break that cycle, not reenact it.