The Money That Can’t Move

It's time to change the habit

There is a specific problem in philanthropy right now that does not get talked about enough. It is not about the amount of money in the system. There is plenty of money. It is about where the money needs to go and how we get it there.

In my conversation with Vu Le, we discussed the mutual aid groups, neighborhood organizers, and people physically showing up to protect their communities right now. And then we named the obvious problem: most of them are not 501c3s.

That is not a moral failing. It is just the reality of how grassroots organizing works. The people moving fastest in a crisis are rarely the ones who have spent years building nonprofit infrastructure. They are the ones who saw a need and started doing something about it. But the moment a foundation wants to send them money, everyone hits a wall.

Vu put it plainly: general counsels at foundations have become a massive force for risk aversion. The question he kept asking was, why? Do you actually need a 501c3 for this? Can you not fund an LLC, a mutual aid association, an individual? What exactly is stopping you, and is that thing real, or is it a habit?

Most of the time, it is a habit.

This is where intermediaries come in, and it is worth being honest about what they actually do. An intermediary is not just an administrative convenience. It is a bridge between resources that exist and communities that need them but cannot access them through traditional channels. It absorbs the legal and fiduciary complexity that a large foundation is unwilling or unable to hold. It moves money that would otherwise sit still.

Vu said it directly: intermediaries can play a vital role, especially when funders are too busy to manage hundreds of grantees. The argument against them, that foundations should fund organizations directly rather than adding a layer, collapses the moment you acknowledge that direct funding often cannot happen. The layer is not inefficiency. The layer is the only path.

What makes an intermediary worth trusting is the same thing that makes any connector worth trusting: relationships, judgment, and accountability. A funder needs to know that the person or organization in the middle understands the landscape, knows which groups are doing real work, and can make sound decisions quickly. That is not a generic capability. It is built over time, through sustained proximity to the work.

The money is there. The urgency is there. The people doing the work are there. What is missing, in a lot of cases, is the infrastructure to connect them. That is not a small gap. Right now, it is everything.

Let’s start thinking outside of the box.

Interested in how an intermediary may help you get the money moving? Get in touch- hello@theabbylab.com.