Buying Time

In early 2025, amid cruel and capricious shuttering of programs, scientific studies, and organizations, we needed philanthropy to buy time, not to take time. The results weren’t great.

That need for bought time didn’t go away, even if programs did.

Our collective failure to reckon with the difference between the damage left by the suddenness of a shutdown and the difficulty, but lesser damage, of a winddown is borne most by the communities that have the least say in any of this. I'm calling on philanthropy to engage in harm reduction to turn shutdowns into winddowns.

This isn't giving in — it’s shielding communities from a particular kind of damage: what I call "the harms of how." These are separate and distinct from the harms created by the ending itself. They are the difference between being thrown off a cliff and shimmying down by a belay line. You’re at the bottom of the canyon either way, but that’s about where the similarities stop.

In its last year, The Full Frame Initiative benefitted from funders who stepped up to prevent the harms of how, allowing us to wind down with integrity and a strong transition of our mission to community. If these behaviors occurred at scale, they could dramatically backstop the wave of harms of how crashing around us.

Read about the need for bought time and the harms of how here, and get specific guidance on ways to buy time here.