Lucy Bernholz

Stand up

I've not posted in awhile for several reasons. I'm back today because my limited social media is blowing up with people sharing news of the administration's intent to revoke 501(c) (3) status from U.S. nonprofits. This comes after a presidential rant about

PBC

PBC 2 Everything for Everyone

Hello. And welcome back. Sorry it took so long for me to get this organized. Long Covid thinks little of modern work's expectations about time. The next meetings of the PBC will take place on April 29, 2025 OR April 30/May 1, 2025. In an effort to

tactics

Tactics

Lots of people are doing great work covering the horrors unfolding in the U.S. - both legal and not. This story about Greenpeace should be (yet another) wake up for nonprofit organizations. It shows off two tactics I'm sad to say will likely proliferate: lawsuits and AI-enabled

covid

Five years later...

Pandemics change worlds in the short term, as many of you act like it's over, and in the long term. Where world changes are concerned, we are still in the opening chapters of the history and effects of the Covid pandemic. Covid is back in the news nowadays,

Since you asked...

Lots of people keep asking me why foundations are so quiet right now. As if I know what the board members and C suiters are thinking. Ha! But, since you asked, here are some things they might be doing, or could do. Divest from Tesla and other #BillionaireBully owned companies.

law

More of this, please

Thanks to the public sector lawyer friend who sent me this (they are not an alum of Georgetown Law).* The background: Ed Martin, Interim U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, wrote to the Dean of Georgetown Law School saying, basically, stop seeking classes that represent America's

Rights fighting

The Trump administration tried to "disappear" Mahmoud Khalil. He is a former college protester. Let me be clear - disappearing protestors is a bigger threat to civil society than cutting off government funding. Cutting off government funding causes harm - especially to service recipients, community members, and employees.

Some changes to the PBC

I've been offline since February 24, when we held the first meeting of the Philanthropy Book Club. It was a wonderful conversation and I'm grateful to all who came. But it took a whole lot out of me - not just 48 hours to recover, more

Otherwise and elsewhere

Thank you to everyone who signed up for - and especially those who showed up for - the first meeting of the PBC (Philanthropy Book Club). I appreciate the time people took to read the book, prepare questions, and engage with each other. Thanks in particular to Claire Dunning, author

Infrastructures of giving

I started the Blueprint series in 2009 when it became clear to me that the world of "philanthropy" (501 c 3 s and foundations) in the USA was more myopic than I'd thought. I wanted that narrow dyad to understand that it did not control how

What social contract?

In a nation where the President has given a private citizen (Forget this special government employee, garbage) the literal digital keys to the country, what is the average citizen's obligation to obey? If, as junior high civics taught me, Congress has the power of the purse and the

Do you get it, yet?

At the end of Trump 1 and at the height of the Covid sheltering in place, I was asked to write an article for a foundation-published collection on democracy. I wrote a piece called Gathering. It's about our need as humans to connect and how the rights of

Philanthropy and AI

There are several wonderful dissertation topics and books to be written about the role of civil society, nonprofits, and philanthropic funders in the evolution of AI. Sara Herschander of The Chronicle of Philanthropy has an article out as a look at this minute-in-time. It draws from some of the data

The richest are stealing from the poorest (Again. Blatantly)

Henry Farrell is one of two authors of the book, Underground Empire: How America Weaponized the World Economy. Because I think Henry's a smarty pants (I had the opportunity to work with him on the book Digital Technology and Democracy Theory), I picked up a copy of Underground

Longtermism, EA, and the crime scenes in DC

I've been calling Elon Musk's encroachments a coup. Musk is definitely part of a coup - a self coup if one will - but Elon's role is as criminal mastermind. He's undertaking the biggest data breach in history - in full view

Dots for now

(Note from Lucy: sometimes things move so fast you can't keep up with them. The blog post below was written prior to the one you received on Friday. The one on Friday was my loudest, clearest, most informed cry for action. This one was written as a prelude

It is a Digital Coup and it is happening NOW.

This is an all hands on deck emergency. Elon Musk - as the front man for a group of billionaires (Thiel, Sacks, etc) fed up with democracy - is leading a digital coup of the United States. The President and GOP electeds are facilitating this - thinking the billionaires will

"Untitled": Need better labels

Dear J: Are you alive? Did you get my text? I’m sure there’s an emerging protocol for these “disaster texts,” but I’m not yet fluent in it. I waited a few weeks after the worst of the fires to text again. I had reached out about 3

Democracy is barely hanging on against the Internet. Can it survive the celebrity con?

In 2017, Nate Persily, a Stanford Law School Professor, published an article in The Journal of Democracy entitled "Can Democracy Survive the Internet?" I don't want to "Fukuyama" this question - declaring something dead before enough time has passed to really know - but

It's a coup

It feels like both the longest and shortest two weeks on record. Two weeks ago today, Donald Trump was sworn in as President. Without needing to read any dedicated-MAGA press, there's been quite a shift in tone in the newsletter, blog, substack, BlueSky version of news. Where there

Federate - or miss out

For most of the past 20+ years I've been trying to convince the leaders of nonprofits and foundations that their work is digitally dependent and that they need to understand, govern, and manage their digital resources with the same integrity to mission with which they manage their human

Crowdfunding through chaos

Last week I had a chance to chat with Rhodri Davies of Why Philanthropy Matters. This is one of the opportunities catalyzed by Blueprint 2025's section on "Keeping prior conversations going." We talked about blurring lines between charity/politics, charity/markets, politics/markets (read about "

PBC

Art and humanity

If philanthropy is "a love of humanity," and the arts are what make us human (as some say), then philanthropists should engage with art. I'm concerned here with fiction writing. The (PBC) Philanthropy Book Club has collected a LOT of title recommendations, but I'm

PBC

PBC n. 1, "extra credit" reading

The first meeting of the PBC (Philanthropy Book Club) is on February 24/25 (time zone dependent). Members are reading Claire Dunning's Nonprofit Neighborhoods. As you‘re thinking about the role of the federal government, local politicians, community groups, and nonprofits in Boston 70+ years ago, you may

Shoulda started yesterday

There's something particularly twisted about watching the U.S. media's reactions to China's DeepSeek AI app. This distinct feeling that the same billionaires who bought the U.S. president and have wholeheartedly capitulated to his racism/hate have been suckering each other and the