The Nonprofit Website Insider

Should you respond to threats to federal funding by updating the text on your website?

Hi website champions,

Sadly, here’s an “emergency” update of the Nonprofit Website Insider—something I never thought I’d consider doing.

I’ve received a number of questions from nonprofits that rely on federal funding: Should they consider removing “woke” buzzwords or DEI policies from their websites? Unfortunately, this is a very legitimate question for those who provide essential services.

There’s every indication that federal agencies are—or soon will be—scrutinizing nonprofits’ websites and communications for “woke” buzzwords. These include general terms like DEI, inclusion, diversity, transgender, and many more, with the possible implication of cutting federal funding to nonprofits with the “wrong” policies. If that seemed unlikely even a few days ago, yesterday the DOJ announced plans to criminally prosecute private companies for DEI and affirmative action policies, apparently across the entire private sector.

How do you decide whether to take down your DEI policy (for now) and potentially adjust your language to avoid key buzzwords that federal agencies may be targeting? Here are some considerations:

1. How much federal funding do you receive? If you can survive without it, this might be the time to stand on principle—to assert that equity, inclusion, and acknowledging systemic racism are core to your work. If we want to make it through this moment without the erasure of key concepts that the nonprofit sector has fought hard to introduce, it’s critical that those who can be loud and proud do so. At least for a while, you might get press coverage for losing an already-committed federal grant (which is, after all, illegal), and you may be able to make up the difference through other funding sources.

2. Is your mission focused on federally targeted areas? If you currently have federal funding and your mission centers on something the new administration has decided to target—such as services for the trans community or research on systemic racism—changing the language on your website likely won’t help. You won’t be able to hide. Instead, start contingency planning now.

3. Do you provide broad or safety-net federally funded services? If #1 is true above, this is the primary type of nonprofit that I think should consider updating its website. This comes down to a difficult decision that each organization must make for themselves, based on:

   • Lawyers are generally advising nonprofits to change their language. This is the conservative approach to avoid interruptions in critical services for your clients.

   • On the other hand, when we alter the language we use and the principles we publicly espouse, we allow the government to redefine—or even erase—important concepts that shape progress. You might decide to stand on principle, which is a principle worth standing on.

If, #1 and #3 are true, and after considering all of the above, you decide to update your website (and I hate writing this list more than I can say), what should you change?

• Remove your DEI or Equity policy, or rename it using less recognizable terms that avoid standard DEI language.

• Remove any brief mentions of the impacts of racism or things that could be interpreted as affirmative action for any group of people (including, horribly, women).

• Consider replacing specific words for protected classes (e.g., “trans,” “disabled,” “immigrants”) with descriptive language instead. For example, “disabled” could become “people who see, hear, or move differently than others.” There’s reason to suspect federal agencies are using keyword lists, so eliminating flagged terms may help.

• Review the list of flagged keywords linked below (which may or may not be real but is likely close) to identify other words you might remove or rephrase.

And most importantly—save everything you remove! Decide how often you’ll check in to determine when it’s safe to restore this content, especially your DEI policy. Start now to try to diversify your funding, to be less dependant on federal funds in future years.

Keep in mind that they’re trying to discourage us, to overwhelm and bury us in considerations so that we can’t get our important work done. Keep going! And take care of yourself.

To better days,

Laura
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