Commentary: Funders cannot wait until the day after to act

In three months, voters will cast their ballots in the 2024 presidential election with two out of three Americans concerned about a repeat of the unrest that followed the 2020 election, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll.

As we get closer to Election Day, the media, philanthropic institutions and everyday citizens alike focus on which candidate will win. The outcomes matter — they matter a great deal — and so it is tempting and understandable to fixate on them.

But overly focusing on what we do not and cannot know distracts us from being prepared to actually live and have impact following Nov. 5. Regardless of who wins the election, we must remain committed to strengthening civil society and trust in our institutions, and combating polarization and eschewing political violence — not only for funders directly focused on democracy, but all funders, because polarization and the absence of trust threaten all of us, not just some of us.

But on this front at least, there is good news: There are strong strategies to maximize our ability to work and be resilient to any outcome. I’ll break many larger strategies into two buckets: embracing the possibility of many outcomes, and moving to where you have greater certainty.

Bucket one: Get ready for many outcomes

Strategically this means planning with implementing partners for any eventuality after the election. Ahead of the election, work to identify organizations and causes to support so you can begin deepening relationships and developing a giving strategy. Look for national, state-level and grassroots organizations to impact efforts at various levels that align with your mission and understand where your support can have the greatest potential impact. Prepare for every scenario.

Actual scenario planning — which can be as simple as holding a meeting to just share how your actions and objectives would respond to different electoral outcomes — can help clarify your next steps. Evaluate your goals and what can be done to achieve them in various scenarios to ensure your philanthropic support continues uninterrupted, regardless of the results, which will likely be received with discontentment by many voters. This planning will give you and your partners hope and agency — powerful counter-agents for the feelings some results may evoke.

Operationally this means you need to remove the bureaucratic hurdles so grantees can respond in the moment. Goals won’t change, but how to achieve them, and with whom, might. Making it easy for your chosen implementing partners to leverage your support is critical to the continuation of this work. You can offer flexible terms and longer-term funding to provide budget stability, extend reporting deadlines to spread the workload and write contracts making it clear to grantees that pivots are welcome and expected.

Bucket two: Moving to where you have greater certainty

In a world of much uncertainty, make investments in areas of higher certainty. For example your decision should be based on long-term strategy, rather than the pressures of the moment, or based on states and local community investments. The period between now and the final certification of election results will be fraught with uncertainty and heightened emotions. In such a volatile environment, it’s tempting to make financial commitments based on the news of the day, public pressure or other external factors. Nevertheless, remain steadfast in your strategic priorities.

State-level and grassroots causes can serve as a valuable complement to national organizations, which may have more resources but are often less agile and more susceptible to internal bureaucracy and external pressures. That’s why since September 2023, Common Ground USA has worked in Pennsylvania and Texas to build cross-partisan coalitions of community leaders including veterans, faith leaders and business groups committed to addressing political divisiveness and hyper-partisanship in their communities to mitigate potential violence around the 2024 election results.

This work is critical, and cannot continue without the support of donors dedicated to making an impact during this tense political time. As donors, you must lay the groundwork now to ensure that you can remain a good partner to philanthropic organizations in times of political uncertainty. This requires you to plan for resilience with partners now, make investments based on long-term strategy and clear the bureaucratic field so that groups can respond in the moment, ensuring that we can safely navigate any outcome on and after Election Day.

This is also why Common Ground USA has worked with the Plessy & Ferguson Initiative to empower communities in New Orleans to constructively address the lasting impact of racial violence – furthering our broader goal of mitigating political violence across the United States, one community at a time.

On Nov. 6, the hard but important work of peacefully certifying our election results and preparing for the next election will begin. Government and civil society will need to combat disinformation and violence while assuring concerned Americans that the election was administered freely, fairly and in accordance with our laws and values. That work cannot begin on Nov. 6 — it takes careful planning and execution over many months to succeed. Despite the numerous reasons to feel discouraged or upset about this election cycle, donors must resist the temptation to give up. Instead, you can take proactive steps now to strengthen relationships and enable flexibility with implementing partners, ensuring that their crucial work continues regardless of the outcome this November.

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Parker is executive director of Common Ground USA, an initiative of Search for Common Ground.

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