For more than 20 years after 9/11, Americans working at nonprofit organizations have risked their lives overseas to deliver humanitarian assistance in places such as Yemen and Somalia. Today, nonprofit workers no longer need to travel 7,000 miles to face terrorist threats because another kind of violent extremism weighs heavily upon the American psyche. It is a domestic white supremacist extremism that specifically targets African Americans, people of color, and Jews. The culprit behind the recent attack at a supermarket in Buffalo, N.Y., reportedly wrote a manifesto that in graphic detail called for the murder of leaders of nonprofits — specifically leaders of color — who fight for racial equality.
Nonprofits have been targets for terrorists before in the United States. Domestic terrorists such as Eric Rudolph, the Olympic Park bomber, have targeted abortion clinics in their deadly attacks. The accused Buffalo shooter, in our view, represents a broadening of the danger posed to nonprofit workers. He reportedly believed in the hoax known as the Great Replacement theory, the belief that people of color somehow are replacing the white race. His reported belief system, especially when augmented by the proliferation of online conspiracy theories, may be more dangerous than the anti-abortion bombers and assassins of previous decades.
If history is a guidepost, the Buffalo manifesto will radicalize and energize the next terrorist. A recent threat warning bulletin, issued following that shooting, issued by the U.S. government seems to agree, specifically noting how online conspiracy theories can create momentum for additional attacks. Moreover, the June 2022 bulletin from the Department of Homeland Security warns that threats the United States faces are expected to heighten as domestic extremists’ eye more vulnerable targets. Nonprofit organizations are such a target; they represent the soft underside of American society.
So, what can nonprofits do about this? First, nonprofit organizations need to develop security strategies to protect their people who are often on the front lines of supporting at-risk communities. This will take convincing, because devoting limited time and resources toward building security strategies and implementing them could divert precious resources away from the primary mission of helping those in need.
Second, building a robust security strategy for nonprofits facing violent extremist threats requires meaningful financial investment. Thus, a whole-of-community approach is necessary if nonprofit organizations are to be kept safe. The U.S. government needs to step up its game. We have seen precedent for this. For example, the government has funded programs to protect places of worship overseas at risk of being attacked. Following the white supremacist terrorist attacks at the Al Noor Mosque and Linwood Islamic Centre in New Zealand, the Department of State began to provide funding to partner countries so they could protect mosques and synagogues.
We must ensure that humanitarian organizations at home who face equally terrifying threats receive the same financial support. The U.S. government prioritizes the safety of critical infrastructure such as nuclear facilities. That’s vitally important, but the government also must recognize that nonprofit organizations are the backbone in our society. Some respond to victims in crisis who are human trafficked. Some work to defend equal access to reproductive health care and provide important medical services. Some protect our constitutional rights from abuse of power. As such, workers at these organizations should be considered “critical infrastructure.” If the government does this, it potentially can save lives.
Third, security challenges are becoming increasingly complex, which means that a modern security strategy requires a holistic approach with multi-sector support. Nonprofits must develop an understanding of the disinformation threats that fuel radicalization into violent ideologies, as reportedly happened with the Buffalo gunman. Nonprofits must understand how adjacent movements and political advocacy issues can affect personnel safety. And it means including security strategy in a nonprofit’s policy agenda and advocacy efforts to show how this could harm constituents the nonprofit aims to serve.
Doing all of this means that nonprofits must have the in-house talent and strategic partnerships to bring sophisticated technology skills, including national security and cybersecurity expertise. Without the right personnel in place, identifying online threats and providing employees and at-risk communities with early warning is unlikely.
Society faces several humanitarian crises, making the need for the nonprofit sector more important than ever. Yet this critically important humanitarian work is jeopardized if those charged with doing it can’t carry out their work safely. Until nonprofits and the government adopt strategies, resources, employees and a whole-of-community approach, we fear that nonprofit organizations will become a popular target for terrorists.
Jason M. Blazakis is a professor of practice at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies and a senior research fellow at the Soufan Center. Follow him on Twitter @Jason_Blazakis.
Anjana Rajan is a cryptographer who is an entrepreneur in residence at Cornell Tech and is the former chief technology officer of Polaris, an nongovernmental organization that fights human trafficking. Follow her on Twitter @anjaninna.