The Nice Guys of Philanthropy: A Profile in Soft Authoritarianism
Last week, I poked fun at an increasingly familiar group—let’s call them the Nice Guys of Philanthropy. Understandably, they have a lot to say about where institutional philanthropy finds itself right now—and they’ve got plenty of boosters ready to cheer them on for their bold takes. They’re easy to spot: white and about ten years older than me, they grew up in blue counties, went to elite schools, and built the kinds of résumés guys like me weren’t exactly meant to have. Despite the advantages they’ve enjoyed, I get the impression they feel stuck—torn between speaking the whole truth and staying in the good graces of the system that signs their checks. They want the system to change, just not at their expense.
They’ve spent their careers stumping for a system that now has a target on its back and very little appetite for doing what it would take to remove it. There will be no shortage of opportunities for these fellas to narrate the story in the months ahead as the Trump administration turns up the heat on Big Philanthropy. In addition to their platforms, there will be op-eds, panels, podcast appearances, and performative displays of principled concern. But the question isn’t whether they’ll speak up; it’s whether what they say will matter—or reveal just how little power they actually hold.
These guys have never been forced to reckon with their own authoritarian—albeit softer—tendencies. They are the personification of soft authoritarianism: control without coercion and governance through process, performance, and polite delay. They don’t silence critique; they schedule it. They never miss an opportunity to champion a progressive cause, no matter how much they don’t fit the part. And that’s exactly why Trump scares them. Not just because he’s dangerous, but because he doesn’t pretend. He doesn’t package his power in virtue. He just uses it — raw, unapologetic force. And, in doing so, he exposes the performative restraint these nice guys have mistaken for leadership all along.
I wrote about this system last week. And based on the response, I suspect I stumbled into something more familiar to others than even to myself—and maybe I just had the nerve to name it. My guess? Many of you know these fellas better than I do. You’ve seen the panels. You’ve listened to their keynotes. Wondered, how can this guy really get it? You know how the game is played. The nice guy era has had a good run. Their predecessors came up during the golden age of institutional philanthropy—when prestige, restraint, and credibility were rewarded. But those conditions are shifting. And the instincts that once helped them rise—caution, consensus, control—may no longer offer the protection they used to.
So who are these guys, really?
I’ve come to realize this is about more than just resolving some suppressed issues from middle school. These critiques are real—and others have been noticing them as long as I have, if not longer. What follows is a five-part profile of the Nice Guys of Philanthropy, each backed by a thinker who’s been watching these patterns take shape far longer than most of us have.
Michael Lind: Mistaking credentials for legitimacy
Michael Lind helps us recognize the nice guys as who they are: the managerial overclass. These are the people trained not to create or contest power, but to manage it. They didn’t build institutions from the ground up; they inherited them. And, rather than earn legitimacy through trust or accountability, they credential it. Lind shows how this class of professionals confuses proximity to elite institutions with public authority. Their power isn’t rooted in trust. It’s recycled through résumés, LinkedIn applause, and swapping seats on each other’s boards.
And, because their legitimacy depends on credentials, Lind helps us see them as stewards of status rather than agents of change. Their reputations are built on being competent, reasonable, and respectable—especially in the eyes of other elites. But that makes them deeply risk-averse. They’re cautious with their language, careful with their alliances, and slow to act—because boldness might cost them credibility. What they call balance is often just fear. What they call thoughtfulness is often just delay. And what they call legitimacy is often little more than professional approval wrapped in moral language.
Theda Skocpol: Replacing movements with theater
Theda Skocpol helps us understand what happened when grassroots movements lost their footing and elite nonprofits took their place. In her research on civic decline, Skocpol traces how twentieth-century institutions rooted in broad participation—unions, chapters, mutual aid societies—were gradually replaced by professionally run advocacy organizations. These new groups didn’t organize members; they created mailing lists. They didn’t build local chapters; they built brands. And, at the center of that shift was a new kind of leader: the policy professional with philanthropic backing. In Skocpol’s view, these organizations became upward-facing—more accountable to funders than to the people they claimed to represent.
This shift matters because it created a different kind of political culture—one that prizes messaging over mobilization, policy briefs over power-building. Skocpol shows that even the most well-intentioned actors ended up reinforcing a structure where access, fluency, and credentials replaced organizing, risk, and democratic accountability. The earliest cohorts of nice guys didn’t destroy participatory infrastructure—but they rose in the vacuum it left behind. And they’ve grown accustomed to calling it leadership. They’re not movement-builders; they’re narrative managers. And when the terrain shifts—as it is now—they don’t return to the people. They double down on the message.
Musa al-Gharbi: Performing justice to protect power
Musa al-Gharbi helps us see how elite actors adopt the language of justice without making any meaningful sacrifices. In his analysis of what he calls symbolic capitalists, al-Gharbi shows how those in power often embrace progressive values rhetorically—equity, inclusion, transformation—precisely to protect the structures that keep them in charge. For these actors, “justice” becomes a kind of branding strategy. It signals alignment without demanding accountability. Al-Gharbi argues that this is not a bug in the system; it’s the feature. When elites perform virtue, it shields them from harder questions about wealth, power, and legitimacy. They center the right language so they don’t have to confront the wrong structures.
Al-Gharbi’s insight is especially relevant in philanthropy, where so many leaders now talk about decolonization, trust-based philanthropy, and racial equity but still move money through systems they fully control. As Rob Henderson might add, many of these talking points function as luxury beliefs—status-signaling values that cost little to those who hold them, but often shift burdens downward. The nice guys know what to say. They’ve read the books, joined the task forces, updated the mission statements; but they mistake fluency for change. As al-Gharbi puts it, the people who benefit most from the current system often claim to be its most thoughtful critics. That’s not hypocrisy; it’s insulation. It lets them keep their hands on the lever of control while convincing themselves they’re leading a revolution.
Claire Dunning: Shifting the burden, then moralizing about it
Claire Dunning shows us how philanthropy didn’t just step in to help communities; it stepped in to replace the state. In Nonprofit Neighborhoods, Dunning traces how government responsibility was quietly offloaded to private nonprofits, especially in communities of color. These nonprofits weren’t created to solve social problems; they were created to administer programs the public sector no longer wanted to manage or fund. What emerged wasn’t an independent sector in the Tocquevillian sense; it was a privatized extension of government propped up by community development corporations, grant funding, and philanthropic dollars. And at the center of it all was the first generation of nice guys—the ones overseeing the programs and deciding what counted as “impact.”
Dunning’s work makes clear that the nonprofit sector’s dependence on philanthropic gatekeepers isn’t an accident; it’s the result of decades of policy choices. But, rather than confront that history, the nice guys often double down on the narrative of generosity. They frame their work as benevolence rather than obligation. They talk about “partnering with community” while continuing to control timelines, language, and outcomes. What looks like innovation is often just austerity with better branding. And what passes for generosity is, in fact, a system of privatized governance where those closest to the problem remain furthest from the power to solve it.
Anand Giridharadas: Playing thought leader instead of critic
Anand Giridharadas offers one of the sharpest critiques of elite philanthropy in Winners Take All, where he unpacks how those in power cloak themselves in the language of justice while working quietly to preserve the system that elevated them. Thought leaders, in his framing, don’t challenge power; they serve it. They host panels, write books, launch fellowships, but rarely surrender control. They aren’t revolutionaries. They’re reformers who know how to look radical without ever threatening the structure. Their job isn’t to upend the status quo; it’s to help it sleep at night.
In philanthropy, this shows up in the nice guy’s signature move: critique without consequence. They name problems, but not the people who caused them. They lament inequality, but never call out the mechanisms that maintain it. They go just far enough to earn credibility, but not far enough to risk anything real. Giridharadas reminds us that this isn’t cowardice; it’s design. These fellas weren’t hired to unsettle power. They were hired to translate it, soften it, and make it palatable. They don’t resist the system. They narrate it. And, in doing so, they help it survive—even as the rest of us grow tired of pretending it works.
Comply, Resist or Release
What makes this moment different is that the nice guy playbook depends on rules—on norms, procedures, and polite restraint. But we may soon be living in a world where those rules no longer hold. And, when that happens, the instincts that built their careers—deference, delay, strategic moderation—won’t offer protection. They’ve spent decades obeying the system. But the system is losing its grip.
If the threats are as serious as they claim, they really have three choices. But I’ll put serious money on this: these fellas will see only two. They’ll either comply, hoping to manage the chaos without losing status. Or they’ll resist, casting themselves as principled defenders of order. The third path—the one they can’t seem to fathom—is to release: the money, the control, the scripts. To stop managing the moment and actually meet it. Not just talk about urgency, but act with it. Not just mourn what’s slipping away, but make space for something freer and less managed to emerge.
Because here’s the truth: the gift was never bound by their rules. It doesn’t require a grant cycle or a board meeting. It doesn’t wait for approval. And, in the kind of moment we’re heading into—where political norms collapse, institutions retreat, and the old assurances fall away—the gift might be the only force still capable of moving quickly, freely, and with courage. It certainly can’t protect them if they keep mistaking management for moral clarity. If these nice guys want to survive what’s coming—not just professionally, but in any meaningful ethical sense—they’ll have to let the gift go.
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, Founder, Responsive FundraisingWriting Projects
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