American philanthropy has invested millions of dollars in advancing human rights worldwide to help people with disabilities, women, children, and others whose rights have been denied or ignored. It has supported organizations fighting discrimination, promoting inclusion, and holding governments accountable.
That is money well spent.
But I have a question for America’s major foundations and other entities that support human rights work: What about funding human rights organizations here at home, especially American organizations working to advance human rights internationally?
As I engage in conversations with human rights nonprofits in America, one thing is clear—most are struggling financially. This is verified in a 2026 report by the Center for Effective Philanthropy (cep.org). Sixty-six percent of CEOs of nonprofits report concern about financial stability; 30 percent report reduced staff size; 36 percent report ending 2024 with an operating deficit; 52 percent had three months or less cash on hand.
I have spent much of my professional life working to advance the rights of people with disabilities. I worked in Congress over a 20-year period, helping develop legislation including the Americans with Disabilities Act. I later served as Commissioner of the federal Administration on Developmental Disabilities in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Today, at 82, I am serving as Interim Executive Director of the United States International Council on Disabilities (USICD).
I have watched disability rights move from the margins of public policy into the mainstream. I have also watched how quickly progress can be threatened when organizations lose the resources to defend those rights.
Rights do not protect themselves. Laws do not implement themselves. And good intentions do not pay the salaries of people who organize, educate, train, and advocate in the human rights arena.
Someone has to do the work.
For more than 35 years, USICD has worked to advance disability rights internationally, build relationships among advocates and governments, and promote the participation of people with disabilities in decisions affecting their lives.
This work is not limited to what happens overseas. Decisions made in Washington influence international development, responses to conflicts, humanitarian assistance, and the treatment of people with disabilities around the world.
American disability organizations have knowledge and experience that can help shape those activities. The Americans with Disabilities Act was the catalyst for the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities and the framework for training and advocacy that followed. Philanthropy underwrote this work enthusiastically as well as governments.
In the past, USAID or the State Department funded human rights work. That is not the case currently.
Philanthropy, therefore, is vital. But consider what is happening in philanthropy itself.
Wellspring Philanthropic Fund, which has supported human rights and social justice organizations for 25 years, is completing its grant making commitments in 2026 and closing in early 2027.
Wellspring deserves recognition for its contributions. But its departure raises a serious question: Who will help sustain the organizations and movements that depend on long-term philanthropic investment?
I would like to see other major foundations, including those that have traditionally concentrated on international human rights, take a hard look at the American organizations whose work supports those same goals.
This is not an argument for taking money away from human rights organizations overseas. Quite the opposite. We need strong organizations in every country, including our own. We need partnerships that allow advocates to learn from one another, work together, and hold governments accountable.
Nor is this simply about keeping nonprofit organizations alive. Some organizations will close. Others will change. That is inevitable.
The real question is whether we are prepared to lose the experience, relationships, institutional knowledge, policy templates, and leadership that have taken decades to develop.
Once those resources disappear, rebuilding them will not be easy or cheap.
I am particularly concerned about the next generation of disability rights leaders.
Young people with disabilities need more than encouragement. They need opportunities to learn how government works, participate in policy decisions, build international relationships, and assume leadership positions. They need experienced advocates willing to mentor them and organizations capable of opening doors. Many of those are here.
Who will provide those opportunities if the organizations doing this work cannot afford staff? Nonprofit employees cannot simply volunteer their way through financial crises. Foundations employ professionals, invest in infrastructure, and plan for their own institutional futures. The organizations they support need those same things.
I respectfully ask major foundations to consider three critical actions.
1. Recognize U.S.-based human rights organizations as essential partners in international human rights work, not merely as domestic charities outside an international funding portfolio.
2. Provide meaningful general operating support. Funding a project while leaving an organization unable to pay its basic operating expenses is a poor investment.
3. Invest in leadership development, particularly for young people from communities whose rights are most at risk. That investment will pay dividends long after individual grants have ended.
None of these ideas is particularly radical. What is radical is for philanthropy to promote and support the importance of human rights abroad while allowing American organizations that defend them to disappear.
I have lived with cerebral palsy all my life. I know personally what disability discrimination looks like. I also know what happens when determined people organize, persuade elected officials, challenge established practices, and refuse to accept exclusion as inevitable.
That is how progress happens. It takes people, organizations, persistence, and money over time.
Philanthropy has an opportunity to help preserve what previous generations fought to achieve while preparing new leaders to carry that work forward.
I am not asking foundations to rescue every struggling nonprofit. I am asking them to recognize that protecting human rights requires a continuing investment in the organizations and people doing the protecting in America as well as overseas.
If American philanthropy believes human rights are universal, then invest in American nonprofits that do this work too.
Thank you.
Common Grounder
