Design is Never Neutral
Stacey Abrams reminds us that injustice can be engineered through design; through the rules and processes that determine who has access, and who doesn’t. In a moment when democracy feels fragile and public trust is fraying, every system we build—or fail to reinvent—sends a signal about who counts and whose time is valued.
This five-part series, The Philanthropic Time Tax, explores what happens when good intentions meet outdated infrastructure. We’ll examine how our application systems mirror public-sector “time taxes,” how data demands can quietly replicate extractive power dynamics, and what it will take to move from process for its own sake to process that serves people - and who is doing this well.
This isn’t a teardown. It’s an invitation. Because if we designed these systems, we can redesign them—with care, with equity in mind, and with time returned to those who need it most.
The Application Maze
The 3 AM Grant Writer
Maria Greene is awake at 3 AM, hunched over a flickering laptop in the break room of the community center where she runs a food pantry. The foundation’s portal has already crashed twice. Question 47 asks for "impact metrics demonstrating sustainable behavioral change outcomes."
She just wants to keep the shelves stocked.
By sunrise, Maria will have spent over 14 hours applying for a $25,000 grant—enough to fund three months of groceries for her community. Her hourly rate for this work? $1.78. If the application is denied, the pantry goes without. And so do the families depending on it.
Maria's story isn’t an exception. And it's time we name it: the philanthropic time tax.
Compliance Culture with a Smile
Annie Lowrey’s powerful piece in The Atlantic laid it out clearly: our public systems force people in need to pay with their time. In Michigan, a safety-net application spanned 42 pages and asked parents to list the conception dates of their children. Lawmakers testing the process were 40 minutes in before they realized how inaccessible the system really was.
Philanthropy has quietly replicated the logic of administrative gatekeeping—but without even the partial safeguards of public accountability or democratic pressure. While public systems face scrutiny through legislation, audits, and media oversight (however imperfect), philanthropy remains largely self-policed, its decisions shaped by internal norms more than legal mandate.
We’ve created our own maze. Application portals. Rigid logic models. Repetitive document uploads. Reports that read more like audits than stories. The sector sits on $1.1 trillion in endowments meant to alleviate human suffering, yet we often ask for more narrative than The Great Gatsby and track more metrics than a Series A investor.
Who Gets Through the Maze?
This isn’t just inefficient—it’s exclusion by design.
Organizations that succeed in this environment tend to be:
Well-resourced
Fluent in grant-speak
Familiar to funders
Meanwhile, the groups doing the most urgent, community-rooted work—often immigrant-led, BIPOC-led, or mutual aid based—get stuck. They don’t have a dedicated grant writer. They might not even have staff.
According to the National Center for Charitable Statistics (NCCS), approximately 30% of U.S. nonprofits operate with no paid staff—they are entirely volunteer-run (National Center for Charitable Statistics, Urban Institute). And where there is a nonprofit, there is a need.
The Data Behind the Forms
Behind every application lies something more valuable than a yes/no decision: data.
Foundations don’t just collect information—they store it, analyze it, and often outsource it to vendors who monetize insights. CRMs, evaluation platforms, AI tools. The nonprofit becomes both applicant and unpaid data vendor.
And here’s the kicker: most of that data isn’t even used to shape strategy. It becomes digital dust. Meanwhile, the communities behind the numbers remain invisible.
This is what scholars Mejías and Couldry call data colonialism—a system where information is extracted from people and places with little consent and less reciprocity. Think of it as fracking for metrics: high-volume extraction, centralized processing, and no shared benefit.
A Better Way Is Already Here
We don’t need to imagine a different system. It exists. And it works:
Michigan cut its 42-page benefits application to a 16-minute online form. Completion rates soared.
Project Streamline showed that simpler processes reduce cost and improve diligence.
Trust-Based Philanthropy has proven that one-page agreements and audio-note reports build real trust, not just audit trails.
Foundations like the Whitman Institute and the Brooklyn Org are walking the talk with conversational reporting #oar and fast, responsive grantmaking.
We already have the tools. The question is whether we’re ready to use them.
Count the Cost
Every hour we ask from a nonprofit is an hour taken from their mission.
Every redundant form widens the equity gap.
Every dashboard that extracts without sharing back is a breach of trust.
So here’s the invitation:
If you could get back the time you spend on paperwork, what would you do with it?
Let’s start counting the real cost of this time tax and making changes. Invest in human-centered and tech-inclusive solutions … apply AI effectively. Responsibly. Transparently.
(This series is co-written with ChatGPT, nicknamed Chet, because it should feel more like jazz than jargon Chet Baker)
Why This Series—and Why Now
This series, The Philanthropic Time Tax, isn’t just about inefficiency. It’s about power, design, and the stories we tell ourselves about accountability. Across the sector, we’ve inherited systems that ask more of nonprofits than we often ask of ourselves—layering process on top of process in ways that slow down the very impact we claim to support.
I’m writing this because the friction is real, and the consequences compound: not just in hours lost, but in trust strained, relationships deferred, and voices left out of the conversation. And because I believe we can do better—not by working faster inside broken systems, but by reimagining the systems themselves.
We’ll explore how we got here, where extraction hides in plain sight, and how reformers are already shifting what’s possible.
This series is an attempt to name what too often goes unspoken: the cost of systems that drain more than they deliver. If we want funding to move at the speed of trust, we have to understand what’s slowing it down.
Next Up: Part 2 — Oil Wells in the Data Field
How grantmaking systems quietly extract and monetize nonprofit data—and why that’s colonial by design, not accident.
#TimeTax #PhilanthropyReform #DataJustice #TrustBasedPhilanthropy #SocialSectorTech #GrantmakingWithoutExtraction #NarrativePower #FundingEquity #NonprofitReform #Philanthropy #Grantmaking, #SystemsChange