How far can philanthropy go to fill government gaps?

NPR. This is the indicator from Planet Money. I'm Waylon Wong. And I'm Stephen Bassaha here with two facts. Oh. The first is that Americans are some of the most generous givers in the world. In fact, Americans give even more than Canadians and about seven times as much as some Europeans according to Philanthropy Roundtable. The other fact is that the American government has become less generous, at least when it comes to funding social safety net programs like food assistance. These two facts do fit in with the American concept of less government, more private good. And given all that, it seems reasonable to imagine American philanthropy stepping in where the US government is stepping out. The big problem with that is that the math doesn't work. On today's show, why charity can't fill the hole left by government cuts, and why some philanthropists say doing that can be the wrong way to spend those dollars. This message comes from Dell Technologies. Every great idea deserves the power to bring it to life. Meet the all new Dell XPS laptop, where style, power, and performance come together to elevate everything you do. With its ultra thin design and all day battery life, it's built to keep up from from your morning coffee to late night inspiration. Powered by series three Intel Core Ultra processors, the XPS is made for editing photos, mixing tracks, and more. Check out the all new Dell XPS at dell.com/xps. This message comes from BetterHelp. President Fernando Madera shares BetterHelp's commitment to expanding access to therapy. Our state of stigma report helped us understand that believing in mental health is easy, but asking for help is not. Now with the report on our hands, we can work to make mental health care more accessible. To get matched with a therapist, visit betterhelp.com/npr for 10% off your first month. To check-in on the state of US charities, we called up Kyle Caldwell. Kyle heads up a group that represents philanthropic giants in Michigan like the Kresge Foundation along with smaller foundations. Well, change and chaos is really the theme that we're having to sort of manage in philanthropy. He's talking about all the change and chaos caused by the federal funding cuts last year under the Trump administration. And I think that creates for us a real challenge because philanthropy cannot step into the breach. To explain what he means by this, he pointed to a moment in Michigan when foundations did try to step in. This was during the government shutdown that started in October. The Trump administration said because of that, it would not be sending out funding for SNAP in November. SNAP helps families pay for groceries, including around 1,400,000 residents in Michigan. This caused a big concern that some families would go hungry. So Michigan turned to philanthropy. And the person who sent out the emergency signal was Dana Lanane. She's with the governor's office as the foundation liaison. So in …