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Weeks into a ceasefire in Gaza that human rights groups say has been repeatedly violated by Israel, some nonprofit organizations in the U.S. find themselves at a crossroads, after losing funding during the genocide due to their pro-Palestine work. 

According to a February report by Funding Freedom, since Oct. 7, 2023, philanthropic funders in the U.S. withdrew at least $8 million from nonprofit organizations that expressed solidarity with Palestinians during Israel’s genocide in Gaza. 

Researchers and nonprofit leaders describe this defunding as an extreme manifestation of the longstanding power imbalance between foundations and grantees.  

This is well-illustrated in the case of Kohl Journal, a feminist journal on gender and sexuality published biannually in English and Arabic that lost four funders since October 2023. The open-access academic publication focuses on feminism and queer movements in the Middle East, Southwest Asia, and North Africa regions, and often publishes the perspectives and analyses of non-Western, anti-colonial feminists. The publication relied on volunteer contributors, but at the end of 2023, as the journal prepared to transition to a model in which all contributors would be paid, funders quietly—and without much explanation—declined to renew contracts that leaders of the journal were told would be renewed.

“Things change with the geopolitical shifts, which is something that we have clearly seen in no uncertain terms in 2023,” said Ghiwa Sayegh, Kohl Journal’s editor-in-chief. “By the end of that year, contracts were not renewed by no less than four funders, two of whom are based in the U.S.” 

The other funders who decided not to continue supporting Kohl Journal are based in Germany, whose government has violently cracked down on pro-Palestine speech over the last two years. Sayegh declined to name any of the funders for fear of losing future funding opportunities.

During the last two years of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, pro-Palestine speech has been increasingly censored across multiple fields of work. From governments revoking the visas of pro-Palestine musicians to the U.S.’s illegal detainment of activists such as Mahmoud Khalil and Rümeysa Öztürk, advocating in solidarity with Palestinians—or even just for the end of the genocide—poses a risk to people’s livelihoods, freedom, and, ultimately, the longevity of movement work that is intertwined with Palestinian liberation. 

“Fighting the fight”

According to Sayegh, Kohl Journal never received confirmation from funders that their contracts would not be renewed due to the journal’s pro-Palestine stance. Rather, Sayegh said funders heavily implied that their funding relationship would be long-term. For example, one funder requested that Kohl go through a bureaucratic process to prove that the journal is the equivalent of a charity in the U.S., “with the understanding that this [funding] would be long-term,” Sayegh said.

Lyle Matthew Kan, interim president of Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy (AAPIP), told Prism that it’s not unusual for organizations to be left in the dark as to whether it was their pro-Palestine stance that resulted in defunding. 

“It’s more common to just say, ‘We’re not going to renew your funding’ versus ‘We’re going to pull funding,’” he explained. This vague denial of funding both protects the image of the funders and quietly aligns philanthropic organizations with a more neutral stance on the genocide, according to Kan. 

As a result of losing the four funders, Kohl Journal was forced to lay off three of its four editorial team members. Sayegh, the only remaining employee, has also had to scale back on translating the publication, a key part of the journal’s mission statement to create multilingual discourse. “We unfortunately have to pick and choose. If we have project-based funding, then we can allocate a little bit to translation,” Sayegh explained.  

More broadly, the censorship of academic literature about Palestine has increased dramatically in the last two years of the genocide. In July, The Guardian reported that a special issue of the Harvard Educational Review focused on Palestine was canceled by the publisher, citing “complex issues.” The issue’s cancellation adds to a “mounting list of examples of censorship of pro-Palestinian speech,” freelance journalist Alice Speri wrote. 

Sayegh said they are now running Kohl “at the bare minimum” at a time when the publication’s work is needed more than ever. Extreme right-wing rhetoric has become mainstream in the U.S., and Kohl’s alternative feminist analysis filled a critical need, Sayegh said. 

“The reason why there’s pushback against the journal is precisely because we are showing a discourse that’s different, and we are fighting the fight on that discursive level,” Sayegh said.  

For other organizations, the defunding was more explicit. 

Irma Shauf-Bajar still vividly recalls the shock she felt at a meeting earlier this year that decimated the financial future of 18 Million Rising (18MR), the Asian American political organizing nonprofit she first joined in 2020 and has led as executive director since 2021.

The January meeting was organized by a foundation that first began funding 18MR in 2020. Shauf-Bajar said the reason for the meeting was not communicated to her, and when she asked 18MR’s program officer to clarify its purpose, the staffer said they were not at liberty to disclose that information. Upon entering the Zoom meeting, Shauf-Bajar saw that there were two foundation employees present whom she did not know. The program officer who had so far overseen the relationship between 18MR and foundation was not present. 

The reason for the meeting soon became clear. 

“This is not going to be an easy meeting,” Shauf-Bajar recalled a man in leadership at the foundation saying from the outset. Shauf-Bajar declined to reveal names of the people present in the meeting for fear of further retribution. 

According to Shauf-Bajar, the man said, “Let’s get straight to the point: [Our foundation] and the board of advisers have decided that we are going to end our relationship with 18 Million Rising, and we’ll be revoking $250,000.” Prism contacted the foundation multiple times for comment, but received no response.

Shauf-Bajar said it’s still hard to believe that a quarter of 18MR’s yearly budget was wiped out in just a few minutes. The $250,000 was a part of a multiyear grant for 18MR, an organization dedicated to educating, mobilizing, and organizing Asian Americans around issues such as racial justice, abolition, and democracy. 

After the foundation delivered the news, Shauf-Bajar said she sat for a few seconds in shocked silence. Then the man leading the meeting said the reason the foundation was severing ties with 18MR was due to a social media post.

The post in question was shared on Instagram on Oct. 12, 2023, five days after Operation Al-Aqsa Flood and the beginning of Israel’s genocide in Gaza. The post depicts a crying woman, dressed in a keffiyeh, holding a crying boy, with the words “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” Some pro-Israel groups and commentators have characterized the phrase as antisemitic, and the leaders at the foundation highlighted a specific sentence in the post’s caption, alleging that it effectively translates to 18MR being supportive of rape, torture, and war. 

“I basically explained to him the word ‘uprising’ means the Palestinian people are rising against their oppressors. He didn’t talk about anything else in the statement after that second paragraph,” Shauf-Bajar told Prism.

After expressing solidarity with Palestine and relating their struggles to those of Asian Americans who “come from homelands that have been colonized, brutalized, led liberation movements, and still struggle under Western imperialism,” the caption of the post described the unfolding events as the rising up of Palestinian people “against 75+ years of Israeli settler colonial violence and occupation.” The foundation leadership took particular issue with the sentence: “We call on our Asian American community to join in support and speak out to end Israel’s oppression of Palestinians.”

According to Shauf-Bajar, the foundation leader cited the sentence as “a problem,” leading her to question what “the problem” is. 

“And he said, ‘Well, you’re riling up your community, and you’re basically supporting this war, right?’ I pushed back and I said, ‘There is no language that says that. We’re talking specifically about the history of the occupation of the Palestinian people.”

But what Shauf-Bajar said ultimately didn’t matter; the foundation’s leadership had made its decision. According to Shauf-Bajar, who was the only person from 18MR present in the meeting, the foundation appeared to feel strongly that a single sentence in a social media post was justification for rescinding hundreds of thousands of dollars in funding. 

“Silence isn’t an option”

Despite philanthropy’s broader history of refusing to fund organizations that support Palestinian freedom, what happened to 18MR isn’t exactly common practice, according to Kan of AAPIP. Typically, a foundation informs an organization that it is not getting a funding renewal or an invitation for future funding. 

“In those cases, it’s not always clear that it’s 100% the reason,” said Kan, noting that abruptly cutting funding is not “a best practice” and one that “tends to reflect more poorly on the funder than on the grantee.” 

Kan, who has closely followed the defunding of 18MR, said that philanthropic foundations are still largely “skittish” when it comes to supporting work in solidarity with Palestine. In response to the growing trend of foundations defunding pro-Palestine organizations, AAPIP hosted an online funder briefing session on Oct. 23, 2024 about mobilizing philanthropy to support pro-Palestine work. While about 100 foundations attended the event, Kan also assumed that organizing the convening risked future AAPIP funding. 

“It looked like someone might be pulling a substantial amount of funding from us for doing the session,” Kan told Prism, declining to reveal the funder. Ultimately, Kan was able to avert the defunding by being firm about how AAPIP would continue to support pro-Palestine organizations losing philanthropic funding, and making clear that the speakers of the event would not be censored. 

“We were successful in retaining that funding, but it was certainly scary,” said Kan, adding that being able to have “frank conversations” between organizations and funders requires a “deep relationship.” 

As part of the briefing, AAPIP invited 18MR to discuss the many problems related to foundations’ refusal to fund pro-Palestine organizations. According to a public summary document of the event, when nonprofits lose access to funding for their stance on Palestine and anti-war mobilizations, “it ripples out into the community and movement ecosystem” and stifles “dissent and the ability to organize across issues.” Defunding also risks the livelihoods of nonprofit staff and “affects local, state, and national work supporting a wide range of issues that are at the forefront of our democracy,” according to the organizations. 

The primary objective of the funder event was to connect pro-Palestine organizations such as 18MR, the Arab Resource and Organizing Center, and the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights to philanthropic foundations willing to fund their work. For example, since Al-Aqsa Flood, 18MR has pursued organizing work in alignment with its solidarity with Palestine, including partnering with 70 other Asian Pacific American and allied groups to successfully campaign for the removal of Anti-Defamation League (ADL) CEO Johnathan Greenblatt from the board of The Asian American Foundation (TAAF). However, TAAF refused to cut ties with the ADL completely, replacing Greenblatt with Geraldine Acuña-Sunshine, a board member of the ADL. According to critics, the ADL has helped the Trump administration usher in an authoritarian crackdown on pro-Palestine organizers under the guise of fighting antisemitic hate speech. 

Allison Celosia, the resource mobilization director at 18MR, told Prism that in the months since the convening, the organization secured a three-year grant that began in September. This is the only major grant the organization has obtained in the last few months, Celosia said, though 18MR also received a handful of small, rapid-response grants.

We either rally back and mobilize our community, or we will be gone within two years.

Allison Celosia, 18 Million rising’s resource mobilization director

“18MR is at a financial crossroads,” Celosia told Prism. “We either rally back and mobilize our community, or we will be gone within two years.”

For Celosia, it’s obvious that the organization isn’t alone in this experience. “Rather, it’s the landscape of all of our movement partners, this is what we’re all operating under. That’s why silence isn’t an option.”

Remaining silent is tantamount to supporting the ways that philanthropy contributes to unequal structures, according to a spokesperson for Funders for Palestine. The largely anonymous, global group is composed of more than 300 individuals from more than 100 foundations and organizes to mobilize the philanthropic sector “toward deeper solidarity with Palestine and a wider vision of collective liberation.” The group maintains anonymity to avoid targeted backlash.

“Since its inception, the philanthropic sector has largely served to uphold the status quo,” a spokesperson who asked to remain anonymous told Prism over text message. “The majority of institutions within it are designed to preserve power, not to disrupt it. Understanding this history demands that we act with clarity and principle—because if we don’t, what are we even doing here? Around the world, people are rising up in bold, unified calls to stand with the Palestinian struggle and to weave it into the broader fight for social justice.”

“The center cannot hold”  

In March, Funders for Palestine and Funding Freedom, another group building support for Palestinian freedom in the philanthropic sector, published a press release demanding that the philanthropic sector take action.

“Philanthropy must decide. It can either stand with Palestinian liberation—aligning itself with the fight against fascism and oppression that is deeply interconnected across global struggles—or it can uphold the status quo, compounding harm and rolling back progress across all justice agendas,” the press release said.

The public demand was made after the two organizations convened in New York City on March 10 for a discussion on the role of philanthropy in supporting Palestinian liberation. The groups honed in on three primary goals: calling for philanthropic foundations to integrate Palestine into grant portfolios, reckoning with the role of philanthropy in maintaining the status quo, and working with organizations to find “creative solutions with movement partners rather than sacrificing them for [foundations’] internal protection.”

While there are organizations, collectives, and individuals organizing to disrupt the power dynamic in the sector, this work is happening within a system that is founded on resource-hoarding and the depoliticization of social justice issues. At the same time, nonprofits and foundations are navigating a new reality under the Trump administration that has set its sights on attacking the nonprofit ecosystem. 

In the wake of far-right podcaster Charlie Kirk’s death, the Trump administration has targeted left-leaning nonprofits, which the administration alleges are to blame for the growing political violence in the U.S. Right-wing extremist violence is responsible for the overwhelming majority of deadly political violence in the U.S., amounting to approximately 75% to 80% of U.S. domestic terrorism deaths since 2001.

In September, Vice President JD Vance hosted “The Charlie Kirk Show” and downplayed the political violence committed by right-wing actors, claiming that “people on the left are much likelier to defend and celebrate political violence.” Vance also called for the dismantling of Open Society Foundations and the Ford Foundation, accusing both organizations of sponsoring “terrorist sympathizers” and promoting “violence and terrorism.” During a September interview with NBC, President Donald Trump also singled out billionaire George Soros, founder of Open Society Foundations, saying he must be “jailed.” Trump also vowed to investigate whether Soros has violated the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. 

In response, more than 100 philanthropic foundations—including Open Society Foundations and the Ford Foundation—published an open letter condemning political violence and defending the work they fund. 

“Organizations should not be attacked for carrying out their missions or expressing their values in support of the communities they serve,” the letter reads. “We reject attempts to exploit political violence to mischaracterize our good work or restrict our fundamental freedoms, like freedom of speech and the freedom to give. Attempts to silence speech, criminalize opposing viewpoints, and misrepresent and limit charitable giving undermine our democracy and harm all Americans.”

The Funders for Palestine spokesperson said that changing the philanthropic sector is a long-term goal, one aimed at rendering it irrelevant. The ultimate vision, they said, is a world where social justice movements are no longer dependent on philanthropy’s whims, but resourced on their own terms.

We must shift our focus away from those holding on to systems that maintain the status quo and toward finding our people, those who are ready to imagine and build something different.

Funders for Palestine spokesperson

“The center cannot hold if it is built around those who fear transformation,” the spokesperson said. “We are at such a critical moment. … We must shift our focus away from those holding on to systems that maintain the status quo and toward finding our people, those who are ready to imagine and build something different. It is with them that we can take bold, immediate action while laying the groundwork for the long arc of transformation.”

In the meantime, the unequal landscape means that organizations such as 18MR are turning to community members for financial support, rather than larger grants from institutions that come with strings attached. The group organized a rapid-response grassroots fundraising drive in May and hopes to raise double the amount it lost with the same strategy.

“Even before this defunding decision, we’ve started to lay the foundation for diversifying our portfolio,” Celosia said. “Given that we’re organizers at heart, this means community dollars needed to go way up and institutional dollars would, in response, go down from what that revenue pie is.” The defunding simply meant that 18MR had to roll out the strategy sooner than previously planned. 

In telling their story, 18MR leaders hope to spark public and honest conversations about the barriers grassroots organizing encounters in the nonprofit space. 

“We want to speak to what is holding all of us back,” Celosia said. “It’s the fact that we’re operating under these really weird capital structures.”

In September, Shauf-Bajar said that through grassroots fundraising, 18MR successfully raised the money they lost from funders. 

In the summer, Kohl Journal secured a one-time grant that allows the publication to continue operating at a minimum capacity for another year, albeit with just one full-time worker. However, the cost of editorial translation is now covered.

“It’s very hard to see ourselves in any kind of future right now, especially where Kohl is concerned,” Sayegh said, “because it’s been almost two years now and the genocide is still ongoing.” 

Still, Kohl Journal remains committed to pro-Palestine discourse. Sayegh noted that philanthropic funding wasn’t designed for liberatory work. “The system will never fund work and organizing that aims to dismantle,” they said. “The system of funding is failing us, [and] it’s clearly working for itself.”

Editorial Team:
Tina Vasquez, Lead Editor
Carolyn Copeland, Top Editor
Rashmee Kumar, Copy Editor