The first three months of the Trump administration were a mass-extinction level event for global democracy support and foreign aid. With astonishing speed, the administration decimated two cornerstones of U.S. democracy and governance programs overseas — the U.S. Agency for International Development and the State Department.
In February, Elon Musk boasted of “feeding USAID into the wood chipper.” Since then, funding cuts at the agency have led to layoffs and furloughs of nearly 200,000 people as of April 23, both within USAID and at its partner organizations. Meanwhile, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced plans last month to eliminate key roles at the State Department, reduce staff, and completely close an office that works on democracy issues.
The resulting loss to the international development sector is not a gap but a crater. Democracy experts are watching the destruction of their field in real time.
But what if these tragic losses could precipitate a more hopeful story? The Trump administration’s crusade against U.S. support for democracy abroad has left a valuable resource in its wake — an army of unemployed experts who understand how to fix democracy and governance problems. What if philanthropy could bring their expertise to bear to help shore up democratic practice at home?
Many of the people pushed out of these agencies are especially knowledgeable in areas where U.S. democracy is most in need. The 2025 “State of the Nation” progress report, produced by several bipartisan scholars, found that compared with other countries, the United States is near the bottom third in both voter participation and belief in democracy. Polarization in the U.S. is the highest among Western democracies, reaching levels where democratic erosion is often unavoidable. At the same time, misinformation has fueled growing distrust in democratic institutions, while independent, high-quality journalism continues to decline.
For a fraction of what grant makers currently spend on democracy initiatives, they could create a “Democracy Corps,” recruiting these experts to help local U.S. nonprofits reduce polarization and promote trust in government.
New National Service Model
Philanthropy has supported past national service efforts to strengthen democracy. In 2011, the Aspen Institute and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation called for adding a Civic Information Corps component to the AmeriCorps program, sending young volunteers across the country to promote civic knowledge and engagement. More recently, funders such as MacKenzie Scott and the Schultz Family Foundation have backed efforts to make national service a more ingrained part of American culture.
But such initiatives usually envision some form of federal funding, which is extremely unlikely in the current political environment. AmeriCorps is itself facing massive government cuts, leading two-dozen states last week to sue the Trump administration to restore funding. That means the door is wide open for philanthropy to step in and encourage a rethinking of national service.
Thousands of talented public servants, including former federal staff and those affected by canceled government contracts, are hitting the job market. But there aren’t enough positions to employ them in their previous profession. Through their work at home and abroad, these job hunters have unique expertise in areas such as protecting civil liberties, building strong media, forming citizen assemblies, bolstering the rule of law or independent judiciaries, and improving electoral systems — all vital to nurturing democracies. Grant makers can ensure their expertise doesn’t go to waste by deploying them as part of a nationwide Democracy Corps.
Report for America, which places journalists in local newsrooms and pays half their salaries, offers a good model for this type of service initiative. A Democracy Corps national fellowship program could match experts with nonprofits engaged in democracy work, giving the organizations extra capacity and allowing the former federal workers to use their experience where it will make a real difference.
Based on typical fellowship stipends and some back-of-the-envelope math, we estimate that for about $50 million, grant makers could redeploy 1,000 democracy and civic engagement experts to embed in organizations across the country for a year. That’s a small fraction of existing democracy-related funding, estimated at between $5.4 billion and $6.9 billion from 2021 to 2022, according to Democracy Fund.
Funding for the Democracy Corps would cover a $50,000 fellowship stipend for each participant’s living costs. At the same time, participants would attain career-enhancing experiences and a chance to engage communities in democracy building work far outside the walls of federal agencies — applying their experiences in other countries to meet existing needs across the U.S.
In conversations with former USAID officials, several ideas were suggested for putting their expertise to use. These include teaching nonprofits how to use government data to expose mismanagement and ensure policy meets people’s needs; implementing the type of conflict-resolution and crisis-response strategies USAID uses to combat political violence around the world; and developing guidelines for how to reinforce the rule of law and tackle disinformation.
The Democracy Corps could test new ideas for increasing civic engagement, similar to USAID’s Office of Transition Initiatives, a small program that acted as a laboratory for short-term investments in crisis relief, conflict resolution, and civic infrastructure. Those projects ran for several months and shifted as needs changed, making them ideal for collecting evidence to inform future programs. Democracy Corps participants could run and evaluate such pilot programs and then use those experiences to advise local nonprofits and governments on how to put them in place.
A Democracy Corps-style initiative would help grant makers break down the barriers typically separating domestic and international democracy funding, allowing both sides to learn from one another. To make this happen, foundations should partner with existing funder networks, such as Philanthropy for Active Civic Engagementon the domestic side and the Trust, Accountability and Inclusion Collaborative — which Michael leads — on the international side, to identify potential participants, areas of focus, and opportunities for exchange on specific topics and challenges. Such an effort could be replicated in other countries, where democracy and governance experts outside of the U.S. are also seeking employment due to aid cuts.
Philanthropy will need to act fast before financial realities force former workers to leave the field altogether. But this is a perfect project for funders who have already said they will spend more of their endowments to counter Trump administration actions, including the MacArthur, Freedom Together, Hewlett, and Skoll Foundations. More should join them. Amid rising authoritarian concerns in the U.S., experts such as Harvard’s Erica Chenoweth, are calling for a positive coalition to reinvigorate democratic practice. The Democracy Corps can provide the infrastructure and energy for such a coalition.
The loss of thousands of committed and experienced employees of federal agencies is a crisis for our nation. But it’s also an opportunity to expand national service for a worthy cause. Donors should think more expansively about what supporting democracy means, while enlisting the help of experts who suddenly have a lot of time on their hands.
