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These past few weeks have been rife with the abrupt shuttering of government programs, firings of thousands of government and nonprofit employees, and the long tail. knock-on effect on everyone from aid program employees to dock workers and rural farmers. The topic of endings has been front of mind across the globe, so people have been reaching out to basically say, “Wow, everything is closing! This must be your moment!”

It is so very much NOT my moment.

This is basically everything I don’t ever want to see happen. Cruel, callous ejections of people that THE WORLD STILL NEEDS — all while we have more than enough money to keep them working — is nothing like what I prescribe or want to occur.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I am a person who stands very far to the left — miles away from the left of the left of congressional chambers, and no great fan of the state or representative of representative democracies. But you know what I detest more than any of that? EVIL. My opposition to humans bringing misery to other humans or the planet solely for their financial and political gain (or because they think it is a fun game!) is at the heart of my political convictions and also at the heart of the work I am continuing to develop here at The Wind Down.

(*This is an excerpt from a recent post I put up on the The Wind Down blog Click here to read the whole thing)

Here are this week’s links, friends:

1) Indigenous visibility initiative winds down
Since 2018, Illuminative has worked to develop substantive research on Indigenous opinions, promote Indigenous voices in pop culture and entertainment, and partner on a variety of national campaigns from vaccines to support for the U.S. Senate confirmation of Secretary of Interior Deb Haaland.

IllumiNative will wrap up its operations by the end of the year.

2) Hong Kong diversity group declares “mission accomplished”
HK Unison, a group serving ethnic minority communities in the city of Hong Kong, plans to close down after 24 years. The group helped low-income ethnic minorities learn Cantonese, seek jobs, look for schools, and attend court hearings, and was also involved in advocacy and lobbying against racial discrimination.

While the group’s chair Alice Chong says the have “completed their historical mission”, many locals think there is still work to be done and believe the sunset to be politically motivated.

3) UK environmental divestment campaign wraps up
Make My Money Matter was a five-year divestment campaign in the UK, headed up by filmmaker Richard Curtis (yes, of Four Weddings and A Funeral and Love, Actually fame!) and focused on pushing the financial system to prioritize people and planet,. While the campaign has concluded, they note that their work has helped to cede many other initiatives --- most notably driving Cambridge University to Sheffield Cathedral to make bold commitments to more environmentally-friendly investments.

4) Frustration and insecurity as warming center is closed
“When people get kicked out of the hotel, where do they go? They go back to the woods, back to the camps…"

In this piece, housing insecure people in Columbus, Ohio share how they were given help, hope and support only to have it yanked away due to an under-resourced social welfare system and a severe lack of housing in the area.

5) Art gallery’s departure leaves a void in the scene
For over 20 years, the Big Medium helped foster and grow the Austin, Texas art scene. In addition to its own gallery, it also oversaw Austin Studio Tours events and the annual Tito's Prize, a $15,000 artist prize supported by Tito's Vodka. During the pandemic, the group provided a crucial lifeline for struggling artists. However, a shifting funding environment, coupled with leadership changes, and a fire at the gallery, lead to the need to cease operations.

The group is still exploring whether local partners can take over all or some of its programming.

6) IVF support organization winds down
Hasidah, a Jewish nonprofit based in California’s Bay Area, offered IVF grants that led to the birth of 60 babies. The organization was founded by Rabbi Idit Solomon after she struggled to find support for her own challenges to conceive. The decision to shut down was in part motivated by fundraising challenges, but also by the fact that more options had come online for women to access IVF. According to Solomon, “A lot of pressure that we got was constantly about ‘expand, expand, expand, but I think we’re just going to celebrate what we did, which was extraordinary.”

7) Philanthropy's Fork in the Road

"For the next four years at least – perhaps longer – the funding flows will not be turned back on with sufficient velocity to fill the spiking nonprofit budget deficits. Philanthropy cannot close this massive funding gap.

If funders decide to spend at a faster clip, they should avoid the temptation to spread their supplemental funding over all the grantees affected by the federal funding cuts. This amounts to philanthropic palliative care – and an expensive and not especially effective form of it at that. Instead, funders might ask themselves this question: “Which grantees are so essential to our long run goals that we will increase our support for them to make up for any reductions in their federal government funding for the duration of the Trump administration?”

This question will concentrate funders’ attention (and their extra spending) on the most critical grantee organizations – and heighten funders’ awareness of the heavy lift required to offset federal cuts in nonprofit budgets."

In this withering analysis, nonprofit advisor Daniel Stid extends some sobering guidance to philanthropy about the approach it may want to take given the drastic shituation the field finds itself in.

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Closing Remarks is brought to you by The Wind Down, a consultancy for exploring, building, designing, and delivering better endings for mission-driven projects and organizations, and also raising closure consciousness. If you're enjoying it, please support my work.