In September 2025, Inside Philanthropy Editor-in-Chief, David Callahan, published, “Philanthropy’s Identity Focus Strengthens the Right. Is There Another Way?” , a continuation of an argument he presented in two previously published articles, How We Got Here: Six Reasons Liberal Philanthropy Is Losing the Battle for America’s Future and What To Do Now: How Philanthropy Can Help Win the Fight for America’s Future.

In these pieces, Callahan argues that the left has invested too heavily in identity centred organising, and by doing so, has strengthened ‘existing ideological fault lines’, and provided ongoing fuel for the right’s divisive politics. He quotes Steve Banon, who once said that he wanted the left to talk about racism everyday, and makes the claim that progressives have obliged his wish, with philanthropy often footing the bill. In the place of identity based organising, Callahan calls for universalism, which he finds in prioritising economic well-being and affordability, and upholding democracy. These are ideals we can all rally around, and this is where we need to invest our resources.

At face value, Callahan’s argument could make instinctive common sense. If we continue to talk about the things that make us different, we risk creating smaller and smaller factions, and alienating one another so that we cannot build solidarity. And at the same time, we create the space for identity counter-mobilisation, as we see with right-wing rhetoric today.

In response to Callahan, Black Feminist Fund CoFounder, Tynesha McHarris, published, “Retreating on Identity Will Not Unify Us” where she points out that central identity based organizing is calling out the connectedness of the systems that keep people on the margins of society. How can we discuss the class dynamics of housing insecurity without acknowledging how access to housing is racialized? Movements led by Black, indigenous, brown, queer, trans, disabled communities have historically expanded freedoms for all, while the stoking of white grievances and the fabrication of Othered bogeymen instead has driven polarisation and deepened our social divides. To Callahan’s assertion that Philanthropy has footed the bill of identity centered organizing, McHarris makes it clear that reality is much much further from that. From research published by the Black Feminist Fund, we know that only 0.1% – 0.35% of all foundation funding globally went to Black women, girls and trans people. The issue is not identity centred politics, but a damning dearth of sustained, courageous resourcing of oppressed people, organizing for our collective good.

In October 2025, Callahan and McHarris continued this conversation, not resolving their differences, but wrestling them out publicly. We see on the one hand, a flattening of the question of the strategy for philanthropy into false binaries, race vs class, economic well-being vs gender parity, etc, and on the other, the acknowledgement that the working class is not abstract, it *is* Black, queer, immigrant, disabled. And, in order to win the struggle for our collective freedoms, we must acknowledge all of these lived realities, and urgently resource the organisers who bring an intersectional lens to dismantling oppressive systems.

We have published below McHarris’s final essay in this dialogue. You can find the full conversation here: https://www.insidephilanthropy.com/home/a-dialogue-on-identity-strategy-and-philanthropy 

Tynesha McHarris:

I reached out to David Callahan upon reading his initial piece, “Philanthropy’s Identity Focus Strengthens the Right. Is There Another Way?,” because what he framed as a diagnosis, I see as dangerous misdirection — one that risks fueling funders to abandon racial and gender justice movements at the very moment they are under the fiercest attack.

Callahan says I’m complacent, that I refuse to “confront reality.” What I refuse to do is confuse panic with strategy. The real complacency is believing we can appease white nationalism and authoritarianism by sidelining the very communities they are hell bent on erasing. Now is not the time for retreat. Now is the time to recommit to lifting up the most precarious and vulnerable.

I understand that Callahan represents a faction that wants to win elections in the short term at any cost. Don’t get me wrong, I want to win, too. Elections are critical battlegrounds, especially in this moment when authoritarianism is not creeping but charging forward. But to me, a Black feminist who has dedicated her life to justice, winning is not limited to election outcomes. Elections are tactical steps, not the endgame.

And here’s the truth: We won’t even win elections through Callahan’s strategy. History is clear. We don’t secure durable victories by abandoning the very people who have always carried progress forward. Black women, immigrants, Muslim, queer and trans people are the voters and leaders who tip elections, and they will not be mobilized by a politics of erasure. They are mobilized when their whole lives are seen, defended and invested in.

We won’t be doing that if philanthropy turns its back on the rights of trans people, immigrants, Latinx, Indigenous, Muslim and Black communities, especially while the Trump administration works to criminalize DEI and dissent, ban books, gut the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice, abduct migrants and erase the history of slavery and genocide from our national memory.

At the same time, the federal government is being weaponized to intimidate, harass and punish funders, movements and community leaders. And no surprise, the first targets in this unconstitutional, vengeance-driven agenda are organizations advancing racial justice, immigrant justice and civil rights, as the right-wing smear tank Capital Research Center brags in its so-called “investigations.”

So now, philanthropy should shift gears and embrace race and gender-blind “working class” issues? I disagree. The administration’s intimidation tactics toward philanthropy are designed to sow fear, and many are retreating. But this is when we must stand together, especially with those at greatest risk.

This is why I cofounded the Black Feminist Fund. Because only a sliver of philanthropy was reaching Black feminists, we committed to long-term, capacity-building investments in groups working toward transformative change across the globe. And it is working. These efforts are strengthening entire communities economically, politically, socially and culturally. 

And the data makes it plain: When you fund Black feminist movements, you are funding working-class struggles. In April 2025, Black women lost more than 100,000 jobs, the largest decline of any demographic group that month, and their unemployment rate jumped from 5.1 % to 6.1%, while rates for white and Latina women stayed relatively flat. Black women are among the hardest hit by a racial agenda disguised as economic policy. Investing in the movements Black feminists lead is not symbolic; it is how you strengthen the working class itself.

Callahan wants us to believe we can choose class over race and still win. History says otherwise. Nikole Hannah-Jones reminds us that after Reconstruction, poor white sharecroppers allied with elites who held the wealth because whiteness was the bigger payoff. That’s not ancient history, it’s a pattern. Every time democracy has bent to fascism and white supremacy, it was because people convinced themselves that conceding ground on rights would somehow buy stability. It never has.

And let’s not romanticize the “working class” as though it were neutral. As I have shared in previous writings, today’s working class is women, immigrants, care workers, queer and trans people, Black and brown communities. You cannot fight for housing justice without fighting racism. You cannot fight for wages without confronting the gendered devaluation of care. Race, gender and class are not separate buckets, they are inseparable.

Do I think philanthropy’s response to racial justice since 2020 has often been shallow, performative, even transactional? Absolutely. Too many foundations rushed out pledges only to retreat at the first sign of backlash. Movements felt used for box-checking and short-term civic engagement cycles. Those failures are real. But the answer is to deepen the work, not abandon it.

Meanwhile, Trump’s so-called “economic agenda” has done nothing for working-class communities. No wage gains. No expanded safety net. Just tax cuts for billionaires while families are pushed deeper into precarity. To focus philanthropy only on “pocketbook issues” is to fall into the right’s trap, reducing politics to gas prices while ignoring authoritarianism’s real project. As the Othering & Belonging Institute points out, weaponizing race and gender is not a side tactic of authoritarian regimes, it is the strategy.

So let’s be honest. Election outcomes matter, and we cannot afford to lose them. But they are not the only measure of progress. The real test is whether we will stand together in courage or collapse into preemptive compliance. Call it identity politics. Call it saving democracy. Call it what you want. The reality is that lives and freedoms are on the line.

Time is of the essence. We cannot waste it on false choices.

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