Everyone’s Talking About ‘Affordability.’ Philanthropy Should, Too.
To build trust in the communities they serve, nonprofits need to speak plainly about the work they already do to help people afford their lives.
By Matt Watkins
Contributor
January 20, 2026 | Read Time: 5 minutes
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As 2026 takes hold, what shapes people’s feeling about their lives isn’t ideology or identity but something far more immediate: what they can afford and how quickly a paycheck disappears once the bills are paid.
The word “affordability” has become central to political discourse because it names what people experience: whether their paycheck covers what life costs. Candidates won recent high-stakes elections by speaking plainly about rent, child care, and groceries. The philanthropic sector, however, continues to frame this issue using terms such as “economic mobility,” “financial stability,” “asset building,” and “opportunity creation.” These phrases describe aspirations, not costs. They sound professional but don’t reflect how people talk about their lives or what they need institutions to understand about them.
For many Americans, the promise that each generation will do better than the last feels increasingly fragile. People sense that life costs more while progress yields less and that staying afloat requires constant recalculation. This feeling appears in the quiet math people do at kitchen tables, in pharmacy lines, and on rent portals that refresh with higher numbers year after year.
The data mirrors this lived reality. Urban Institute research finds that 52 percent of people in American families lack the resources needed to cover what it costs to live securely in their communities, even as average earnings have grown nationwide over the past decade. Meanwhile, annual child care prices for two young children have risen 40 percent, rents by 50 percent, and home sale prices by 80 percent. A Brookings Institution analysis reveals that across 160 U.S. metro areas, at least one-third of middle-class families cannot afford necessities, with the burden falling hardest on families of color.
Cost Matters Most
Affordability has become the dominant way people understand economic life because no one encounters housing, health care, child care, and education, as separate policy domains. They experience them as a single, cumulative pressure that determines whether a job feels sustainable, whether a family feels stable, and whether institutions feel trustworthy.
As nonprofits and foundations fill gaps left by federal funding cuts, how they describe their work matters. They need to name affordability directly or risk sounding disconnected. This shouldn’t be a difficult task. The sector already does the work of helping people afford their lives. They just need to speak more plainly about those efforts.
In my work with foundations and nonprofits, I see the same pattern across issue areas. Leaders rely on professional language that avoids a direct focus on cost, hiding what for most people is a simple matter of dollars and cents. Here’s what shifting to affordability language looks like in five key areas.
Housing: The sector often talks about “housing stability,” “housing insecurity,” or “homelessness prevention.” These phrases describe outcomes, not costs.
Instead say your organization helps families afford housing in the communities where they work. Say you prevent eviction before it becomes homelessness. Say you make it possible for working families to stay in their homes as rents rise faster than wages.
Health care: Terms such as “access,” “coverage,” or “care coordination” typically frame health care discussions in the nonprofit world. But that language sidesteps the decisions families make between getting care and paying the bill.
Instead say your organization helps people afford doctor visits, medication, and treatment without taking on debt. Say you make it possible for families to get care when they need it, not only when they can pay for it.
Child care: Parents need child care they can afford to keep working. Yet most child care reform efforts are centered on expanding access or improving quality. Both matter. But when the conversation avoids cost, it ignores the pressure families actually face. For many parents, the problem isn’t whether child care exists or meets professional standards. It’s whether they can pay for it month after month without falling behind.
So keep it simple: Say your organization makes it possible for parents to work without spending most of their paycheck on child care.
Education and training. Terms like “opportunity,” “credentials,” and, once again, “access” are favored among education advocates. But that language leaves out the long-term financial burden people carry after they enroll.
Instead the focus should be on helping people afford education and training without decades of debt. Say you support paths to stable work that don’t consume what little savings people have.
Food. As I’ve previously discussed, phrases like “food insecurity,” “food access,” “nutrition gaps,” and “emergency food assistance” make hunger sound temporary or logistical. For most people, this issue is straightforward: Their budget no longer covers the cost of groceries.
So say instead that your organization helps families afford groceries every week — that you make it possible for people to eat consistently without choosing between food and other bills.
If the sector wants to remain credible in the year ahead, it must speak to the economic reality people are living without distance or disguise. Affordability is how people decide whether institutions understand them, respect their effort, and deserve their trust.
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