Reject a tyranny of the urgent

Why It Matters

When crisis dominates the agenda, it narrows our focus, justifies shortcuts, and concentrates decision-making in fewer and fewer hands. The loudest, most visible crisis gets the funding. Everything else — the slower harms, the longer struggles, the less legible needs — gets pushed to the margins or disappears entirely.

This often leads to solutions with no input from people experiencing and most severely impacted by the crisis. As a result, philanthropy invests in superficial solutions that either undermine community-led solutions that address the root of the problem or even exacerbate the problem itself.

Even in moments of urgency, embrace responses that consider the full spectrum of a community’s needs and preserve and advance human rights.