08/13/2026
**OPPRESSION DOESN'T ALWAYS LOOK LIKE OPPRESSION.**
I've been thinking about something lately.
Those of us who organize, advocate and volunteer sometimes believe that because we understand systems of power, we're somehow immune from being controlled by them.
We're not.
Sometimes oppression doesn't come with somebody standing in your doorway telling you that you can't organize.
Sometimes it works by making you **afraid to organize.**
Afraid you'll lose your funding.
Afraid you'll lose your nonprofit status.
Afraid somebody will file a complaint.
Afraid somebody will sue you.
Afraid you'll jeopardize your job.
And eventually nobody even has to tell you **NO** anymore.
**You start telling yourself no.**
Look at what has happened in the nonprofit world.
There are legitimate legal distinctions between 501(c)(3)s, 501(c)(4)s, political organizations and other entities. There are things a C3 absolutely cannot do.
But sometimes we take those restrictions much further than the law itself does.
I've encountered people who act as though a C3 can't even sit in the same room with a C4.
That's not the law.
Yet fear can become so powerful that organizations voluntarily surrender opportunities to communicate, organize and build relationships—even when those activities may be perfectly lawful.
**That's how power works.**
The most effective system of control doesn't have to stop you.
It convinces **you to stop yourself.**
We've watched something similar happen with major institutions. Universities, corporations, law firms, media organizations and others can begin accommodating political power before they've exhausted their ability to resist it.
And organizers aren't magically immune from that pressure.
In fact, grassroots organizers may be especially vulnerable.
Many young organizers have rent to pay. They need their paycheck. Their organization needs its grants. Their families depend upon them.
I understand that.
I'm in a different position at this stage of my life. I'm retired. My house is paid for. My car is paid for. There's food in my refrigerator.
That gives me the privilege of being able to say:
**"Come get me."**
A 27-year-old organizer trying to pay rent may not have that luxury.
It reminds me of a story I've told many times about a mother working three jobs just trying to keep her children fed, the lights on and the heat running—without even having health insurance.
People would ask:
*"Why doesn't she vote?"*
Maybe because after working three jobs, feeding her children and simply surviving another week, participating in democracy can start feeling like a luxury.
That's not apathy.
**That's what powerlessness can look like.**
And I wonder whether we're creating something similar in the nonprofit and organizing world.
Organizations become so dependent upon grants, donors and maintaining their legal status that protecting the institution can gradually become more important than exercising the power the institution was created to build.
And churches ought to think seriously about this too.
The Black church and other faith communities were enormously important organizing institutions during the Civil Rights Movement. Today, some churches have become so frightened of jeopardizing their tax status that they shy away even from lawful social-justice advocacy.
We should know the law.
We should follow the law.
**But we should never surrender rights the law never took away from us.**
Because authoritarian power grows not only when government takes power.
It also grows when institutions and ordinary people **voluntarily give power away.**
So here's the question I've been wrestling with:
**Have fear, funding and nonprofit rules created a culture that keeps organizations divided and less powerful than they could be?**
And even more importantly:
**How do we push back without putting the livelihoods of organizers and the organizations they have built at unnecessary risk?**
I really want to hear what you think.
**Do you agree with this premise?**
If you do, **what does standing up look like?**
Tell me in the comments.
