While Trump is given to sudden reversals, his decision to freeze USAID spending (even temporarily) has already resulted in irreversible, long-term damage. Thankfully, American philanthropists have more than enough money sitting idle to save the day — for now.
Let’s go.
In 2023, USAID spent $38.1 billion on health services, disaster relief, and anti-poverty efforts. Right now, more than $250 billion is sitting untouched in donor-advised funds, which are holding accounts for promised charitable efforts, and whose funders have already received their tax benefit. An immediate infusion of a small fraction of this massive pool of ready money would save the lives of women and children across the world.
To be clear, I am not suggesting that private charitable efforts can or should permanently replace those of the United States government. Once the catastrophic consequences of USAID’s sudden destruction become apparent, I am confident that the American people will demand a return to the field of its best aid officers. A permanent freeze or dismantling of international development aid cannot be on the table.
In the meantime, charitable SWAT teams must deploy around the globe. And we in the American philanthropic community have not only the means, but the expertise and courage to play a pivotal role here. In many cases, we can do it better than USAID.
The opportunity before us to examine the efficacy and efficiency of international development is not a terrible thing. The agency has long funneled much of its budget through a collection of pricey contractors known as “Beltway Bandits” that spend half or more of grants on their own administrative expenses.
For example, USAID also must use American agricultural products for its nutrition programs, and last year it bought 1.1 million metric tons of food from American farmers and ranchers. This is not terribly effective from a development perspective, but American taxpayers would otherwise be paying giant corporate farms to keep fields idle, so it works politically. Thankfully, my own family foundation and others like mine have built strong relationships with local organizations in places like West Africa that are far more efficient and accountable. We can buy food from small African farmers to support fragile local economies. And we are unapologetic about supporting programs that explicitly benefit women and children – something President Trump is banning across the government. Thousands of NGO leaders are scrambling with their tails between their legs to re-write language across their materials that eschew words such as “pregnant” or “woman” or anything that can be defined as a gender lens in fear of retribution of not only their government funds, but also their very status as a 501c3.
Indeed, there couldn’t be a better moment for donor-advised funds to fill this immediate gap because of an enormous transfer of wealth from men to women. Within five years, American women are expected to control most of the $30 trillion in assets possessed by Baby Boomers.
Women give differently than men. We participate in collective giving cooperatives far more readily than our fathers and husbands. Women like MacKenzie Scott and Melinda French Gates have pioneered a form of philanthropy that is more risk tolerant and less bureaucratic. Organizations like the Maverick Collective are moving millions of dollars into innovative programs from a small cohort of highly engaged philanthropists. Now is the time to deploy this capital – not to fill that charity gap, but to instead invest smarter in strengthening leadership in the local organizations so that they can build a path to sustainability that is less reliant on the United States government. Women funders can help rebuild American moral and ethical character by lifting them up and empowering self-reliance.
Women proudly support programs that focus on helping mothers, not as a “do-gooder” activity, but because we were the first to recognize that money directed at women actually improves community outcomes more readily than when given to men. Water.org, a global microfinance organization, has mobilized more than $200 million in philanthropy, which has catalyzed $5 billion in commercial capital to deliver micro-loans (90 percent of which are loaned to women) to build clean water wells in their communities. Not only are the loans paid back at an astonishing 98 percent repayment rate, but the clean water has reached 73 million lives to date, something that would have taken them 700 years to accomplish if the organization had built wells itself.
Days after the fall of Kabul, I spearheaded an effort that raised $7 million in 10 days from female philanthropists to charter private planes and evacuate 1,200 women leaders on the Taliban kill list from Afghanistan, with the help of on-the-ground special ops groups. It was one of my proudest achievements. We’ve since permanently resettled all but eight of these women. That fast, first-in money from private funders then catalyzed an additional $13 million from the U.S. State Department — another example of how first-in female funders take innovative approaches to unlock more money.
There has been some criticism that donor-advised funds — which now collect one out of every eight charitable dollars — are nothing more than tax shelters dressed up as worthy endeavors. I don’t believe that. In fact, we are charitable. American donors give seven times more per capita than our European counterparts, and America is home to 20 percent of the world’s charities. It’s part of our cultural fabric. I’ve spoken to scores of people sitting on hundreds of millions of dollars in these funds for a host of justifiable reasons. Many forget they have it (and indeed the financial institutions who host these funds are incentivized to keep the assets on their balance sheet). Many suffer from paralysis of getting it right or say they are waiting for the right moment.
That moment has arrived.
We are putting together a posse to ride to the rescue. Anyone with an abundant family office or donor-advised fund should get on their horse and ride with us. There are plenty of communities that can help you lean in and strategize on how to put it to work.
Amy Marks Dornbusch is founder of AtlasDaughters and director of the Marks Family Foundation based in California.
