Folks are down bad. We should all be talking about it.

Plus... We're launching a fundraising academy.

Every day, it seems, I learn of another family member or friend who’s really going through it. Unhoused. Foreclosed on. Evicted. Out of work for months, unemployment benefits long expired. Then there’s the harder stuff: desperate crime, addiction, suicidal thoughts, and death.

Encountering so many of these stories over the last few months — from people I hold dear — has left me heartbroken and frustrated, but also scared. Maybe mostly scared. That small, selfish part of me fears I could be next. I’m no more immune to falling on hard times or a toxic downspiral than anyone else. Sure, I’ve managed to keep my head above water so far, but that promises nothing for tomorrow.

“The essence of economic inequality is borne out in a simple fact: there are 400 billionaires in the United States and 45 million people living in poverty. These are not parallel facts; they are intersecting facts. There are 400 American billionaires because there are 45 million people living in poverty. Profit comes at the expense of the living wage. Corporate executives, university presidents, and capitalists in general are living the good life--because so many others are living a life of hardship.”
― Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation

So yeah, I’m worried. But I’m also troubled by how little of this surfaces in the media or in the many nonprofit channels I follow. Beyond the latest political headlines, hand-wringing about inflation, and merited anxieties about AI, there’s almost nothing that paints a picture of a real crisis quietly building — one that will require radical shifts in policy and public will to address.

What I’m describing is a level of structural inequality and oppressive subjugation, obscured by an outdated education system and cheap mass production, so entrenched that there will be no way forward except through fundamental transformation. We are likely already there.

Either way, our organizations need to be waking people up to what’s actually happening in our communities. And unfortunately, the measures the federal government relies on — and that many nonprofits echo — fail to capture the real picture. Consider what I got when I asked about the state of the U.S. economy:

“The U.S. economy is currently defined by steady but moderate growth, a "low-hire, low-fire" labor market, and elevated inflation. Real GDP expanded at an annualized rate of 1.6% in Q1, while consumer spending remains resilient, though rising energy prices and borrowing costs are squeezing some household budgets.” - Google Gemini

This tells us almost nothing. But then again, neither does the unemployment rate nor the poverty rate. Those measures are outdated and largely irrelevant to capturing how Americans are actually faring.

As people doing the work of social justice, we have an obligation to surface the underreported realities of our communities and call people to action. And if we can’t see the connections between mental health, housing access, addiction, and income inequality, we are missing the picture entirely.

But to do this full throttle, we need sources to complement the stories and qualitative data we gather day to day.

So, here are 7 measures/data sets that you can use in your communications to talk about what folks are really experiencing right now where you work:

1. Mental Health America State and County Dashboard An interactive dashboard drawing on data from over 10 million mental health screenings taken by U.S. users between 2020 and 2025, geographically visualizing need for mental health resources at a pace and scale not previously possible. You can filter by condition (depression, suicide risk, PTSD, trauma, psychosis), year, county, age group, and race/ethnicity.

2. CDC Provisional County-Level Drug Overdose Deaths by Month A data visualization from the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics presenting county-level provisional counts for drug overdose deaths based on a current flow of mortality data in the National Vital Statistics System. Updated quarterly, it lets you look up 12-month rolling death counts by county — a stark, localized measure of the addiction crisis.

3. Debt in America: An Interactive Map by The Urban Institute An interactive dashboard drawing on credit bureau data from over 10 million records, showing how debt in collections — medical, student, auto, and more — is distributed across zip codes and counties nationwide, with breakdowns by race and community type. Updated through 2025.

4. The Federal Reserve: County Level Household Debt to Income Ratio A data visualization from the Federal Reserve showing the ratio of household debt to income at the county level across the U.S. — a useful measure for illustrating how financially stretched families are relative to what they earn.

5. The Living Wage Calculator by M.I.T. was developed to help individuals, communities, employers, and others estimate the local wage rate a full-time worker needs to cover the costs of their family’s basic needs where they live. Searchable by county, metro area, or state for 12 different family types. The gap between the living wage and the minimum wage tells the real story of working poverty.

6. Fair Market Rent by HUD Open Data The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s open data portal, which includes Fair Market Rent estimates — the income a household needs to afford a modest rental unit without being cost-burdened — searchable by location.

7. Eviction Filing Patterns in 2025 by the Eviction Lab, a Princeton University research lab’s preliminary analysis of eviction trends across 38 city areas and 10 states. Amid benefit cuts, rising rents, and immigration enforcement, landlords still filed over 1.2 million eviction cases across the country — roughly one filing for every 13 renter households. The report also breaks down racial disparities in who gets evicted.

We’re launching a fundraising academy - designed for leaders like us.

You built something worth funding.

So you wrote the grant. Then another one. Then, maybe, you hired someone to write more of them.

For some of you it worked — until it didn’t.

The pandemic money is gone. Foundations are shifting priorities faster than you can update your LOI, and backpeddling on commitments to justice and equity faster than Deion Sanders in his prime. Government funding comes with strings that are far too dangerous to pull in 2026.

Here’s what I firmly believe: the organizations that will survive the next decade are the ones with people who believe in them enough to write a personal check.

Not a foundation. A person.

Building that kind of support feels intimidating, especially when you’re also running programs, managing campaigns, forging partnerships, and keeping the lights on. Individual donor cultivation is the thing that always gets pushed to next quarter.

And the training doesn’t help. The fancy major-gifts curricula assume you have a prospect researcher, a stewardship coordinator, and a database manager. The small-org trainings send you back to popcorn fundraisers and crowdfunding.

There’s almost nothing in between.

What about the leader who needs to make a real ask — not a $25 ask, not a seven-figure university campaign — but a meaningful, relationship-driven gift from someone who cares about what you’re building?

That’s the gap. And it’s enormous.

That’s why I’m building Own the Ask Fundraising Academy — for nonprofit leaders who are ready to stop waiting for grants to cover their vision of what’s possible, and start building something that actually belongs to them.

For the first cohort, we have only 35 spots available - well actually 34 because I’m taking up one. That’s right - I’ll be a student along with you, not a teacher. Our diverse faculty come with real experience as fundraisers and executive directors, who’ve put their 10,000 hours in on this stuff.

So, check out our site, enroll in the cohort, and let us know if you have any questions!

1. Venable Foundation - Funding for civic, art, legal, health organizations across 8 major metro areas. LOI approval is required before applying. - September 1, 2026

2. Zable Foundation - Grants for nonprofits in San Diego County for youth, underrepresented communities, veterans, sports - August 1, 2026.

3. Joseph Drown Foundation - Funds human and social service organizations in Los Angeles County - July 15, 2026

4. Park Foundation - Grants for civic participation, media, environment, and school food for organizations across the country - July 7, 2026

5. Looking Out Foundation - Funding for immigrant & refugee work, trans and gender-expansive people’s rights, and access to mental health services - July 1, 2026

6. Juliet Ashby Hillman Foundation - Funding for nonprofit programs in Portland, OR - July 1, 2026

7. Trust for Civic Life - Civic Hub Grant - grants provide flexible funding for local groups in our priority regions- July 2026

8. Allianz Foundation - Professional and personal growth experiences for youth 16-25 in select major metro areas across the US - June 30, 2026

9. The Franklin P. and Arthur W. Perdue Foundation - Funding requests for nonprofit organizations near their operating facilities across the US - June 30, 2026

10. Goodwin Family Memorial Trust - Grants for organizations serving boys and young men in need in Southern California - June 30, 2026

1. Leadership Fellows at The Trust - rolling deadline

2. Harvard Health Coverage Fellowship - rolling deadline

3. Seeding Disruption Fellowship - rolling deadline

4. Craft Archive Fellowship - For researchers, scholars, and artists conducting research on history of underrepresented craft artists - rolling deadline

5. Women inPower Fellowship - For women who are 3-5 years away from C-suite positions or women based in NYC (separate cohorts) - November 2026

6. Loghaven Artist Residency - Artists across mediums get support and a stipend during a residency in the Tennessee woods - July 15, 2026

7. Just Tech Fellowship - supports researchers, artists, and practitioners addressing how technology shapes society and public life - June 28, 2026

8. Aging Services Leadership Fellowship - from United Negro College Fund provides $50,000 to $80,000 for professional development - June 30, 2026