Skoll Foundation commits $25m to compensate for Trump’s ‘inhumane’ spending cuts

The Skoll Foundation will increase its grant spending by nearly 30% this year, to respond to what founder Jeff Skoll called the “careless and callous and inhumane” cuts under way in the USA.  

The Canadian-born philanthropist and former eBay president announced the funding boost at the Skoll World Forum on Wednesday.

Skoll returned to his position as chair of the foundation earlier this year, after a seven-year gap dealing with what he called “a serious medical condition”. His return to stage at the annual conference, held in Oxford, England, prompted a standing ovation from the audience.

We hope it serves as a signal to other funders to consider this an emergency and increase their grant making

The Skoll Foundation was created in 1999 to support social entrepreneurs and innovators. It had “always made concerted efforts to work with people across the political and ideological spectrum”, Skoll said. But, he added, “while I believe most governments could be more efficient, I want to be clear that how these efficiencies are being achieved so far in the US has been careless and callous and inhumane.”

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The increased funding will be delivered through a $25m emergency fund, primarily to help the foundation’s existing awardees and grantees to adjust to the “new realities” of US funding cuts, increasing the foundation’s 2025 payout by about 28%. 

“While we know this money is not enough to make up for the losses that many of you are feeling, we hope it serves as a signal to other funders to consider this an emergency and increase their grant making,” he said.  

The announcement was praised by John Palfrey, president of the MacArthur Foundation, in a post on LinkedIn, who has also urged funders to do more. 

The MacArthur Foundation has been influential in impact investing, co-founding the Catalytic Capital Consortium in 2019. In February 2025 it was among the first major foundations to announce an increase in its baseline grants payout following US federal cuts. In an earlier session at the Skoll World Forum on Wednesday, Palfrey emphasised that the increase – from 5% of its endowment, the required minimum in the US, to at least 6% for the next two years – was “a floor, not a ceiling”. This is anticipated to be around $150m on top of the MacArthur Foundation’s usual payouts of around $400m a year, AP reported. The foundation reported that it had $8.7bn in assets in 2023.

We have been supporting diversity, equity and inclusion... it’s not illegal, we’re doing it

Critics say 6% is still far from sufficient. But Palfrey pointed to the potential impact if all US foundations made the same change. “Part of what I’m trying to say is, if you just went from 5% to 6%, it would be $80bn in real money over the next four years.”

Asked by Naina Subberwal Batra, CEO of AVPN, who was chairing the discussion, what the MacArthur Foundation was choosing to fund in response to US government cuts, Palfrey described the approach as one of “steely resolve”.

“We are stubborn on some things, and we should be. We have been supporting diversity, equity and inclusion. I do not care that something’s being [described as] illegal: it’s not illegal, we’re doing it,” said Palfrey. “We should not obey in advance. We should not back off.”

• Read more in our Editor’s Post: DEI is under threat, but can it hide in plain sight?

Repairing the breakage

The Skoll Foundation has invested over $1.2bn to date in social entrepreneurs around the world, including through its annual Skoll Awards for Social Entrepreneurship. This year’s five winners receive $2m each in unrestricted funding. 

The 2025 forum is themed on the concept of kintsugi, the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with golden lacquer.

“Many of us feel that our world is being torn apart: our cultures, our communities, our countries. We’re in a time where things are breaking,” said Skoll Foundation CEO Don Gips on Wednesday. “Kintsugi shows us that what is broken can be repaired, can be better than it was. Yes, things are breaking, but it could give rise to something better. What we build next might be exactly what we need.”

Tribute was also paid to the late Jimmy Carter, the former US president who spoke about gender inequality at the Skoll World Forum in 2018, and who died at the age of 100 in December 2024.

“We lost a humble, truly brilliant soul in President Carter last year,” said Jeff Skoll. Addressing the audience, he added: “President Carter cared about you, and if he was here, he would say: I got your back.”