Packard Foundation Issues Call to Action as Civil Society Faces Growing Restrictions Worldwide

The David and Lucile Packard Foundation warns that civil society is under growing threat worldwide, with shrinking funding and rising restrictions, intimidation, and retaliation against leaders. As core freedoms decline in 60 countries—including increasing limits on protest and politicized free speech in the U.S.—these trends jeopardize the ability of advocates and organizations to serve communities. The Foundation argues that philanthropy must invest in strengthening civic infrastructure, protecting the sector, and supporting movements, emphasizing that democracy depends on people’s ability to organize and act peacefully. Read more in the blog post below.

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The David and Lucile Packard Foundation has issued a perspective arguing that philanthropy cannot look away from growing threats to civil society, emphasizing that enduring progress depends on people's ability to come together, speak up, and act peacefully—freedoms that are becoming harder and riskier to exercise as leaders face narrowing civic space amidst growing restrictions, intimidation, and retaliation while funding for civil society shrinks. Civil society—the sector of public life made up of nonprofit, grassroots, and community organizations where people come together to organize, advocate, and act on issues that matter to them—represents the backbone of progress across every issue in the social sector, from climate action to education access, from reproductive rights to public health, with change depending on people having the freedom and ability to speak up, work together, and sustain their efforts over time. The Foundation's perspective from Jamaica Maxwell argues that for philanthropy, this should be a wake-up call: if funders care about lasting progress on the issues they fund, they must also care about the conditions that make progress possible, recognizing that every philanthropic mission depends on a healthy civil society, yet the systems supporting civic action are often overlooked or underfunded.
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The perspective documents shrinking freedoms and growing consequences, noting that core rights, including free speech, peaceful protest, and the ability to organize, are declining in 60 countries across the globe, with nearly three-quarters of the world's population now living in autocracies and democracies outnumbered for the first time in decades. These trends are not confined to specific regions: in the United States restrictions on protest are spreading, free speech is increasingly politicized, and proposals to strip nonprofits of tax-exempt status threaten organizations' ability to operate—shifts that may sound abstract but have concrete effects determining whether health advocates in Mississippi can help families and young people access care, whether community organizations can support children's development and well-being, whether Indigenous leaders in the Congo Basin can protect forests critical to climate and livelihoods, and whether organizers, coalitions, and community leaders can work for more just and sustainable futures. The freedoms to organize, speak, and associate are foundational to progress across the full spectrum of causes and communities, and when civic space is protected, everyone benefits regardless of ideology, geography, or mission.

The Foundation calls on philanthropy to invest beyond individual portfolios in shared foundations of progress, including networks, coalitions, and associations that connect organizations across issues and represent the nonprofit sector locally, nationally, and globally serving as critical connective tissue in moments of crisis; organizational strengthening and leadership resources equipping leaders with practical skills including digital and physical security and organizational resilience; sector defense supporting groups who monitor threats to nonprofits, provide legal support, and communicate the public value of civil society; and forward-looking vision through resourcing movements and advocates working to expand civic freedoms and define the future of civic engagement. At the Packard Foundation, these investments support partners in these areas and collaborate across geographies and issues to help ensure civil society has the strength, connections, and protections it needs to deliver lasting change, with CEO Nancy Lindborg stating, "Democracy does not sustain itself. It depends on people and institutions willing to act peacefully, with care and courage, especially when systems are under strain." The perspective concludes that safeguarding civil society is not separate from funders' work but rather a precondition for success, with philanthropy having both opportunity and responsibility to support people and organizations working to sustain civic life, emphasizing that in an election year and beyond it matters whether people can speak up, organize, and be heard—with the strength of civil society shaping the strength of democracy and the durability of every outcome funders seek.

Read more: "Civil Society at Risk: Why Philanthropy Cannot Look Away" at ​https://www.packard.org/insights/perspective/civil-society-at-risk-why-philanthropy-cannot-look-away/