More than six months into a second Trump administration that has brought multisector cuts to nonprofits, foundations are widening the ways they support such organizations.
Earlier this year, several community and major foundations announced emergency response funds to help groups affected by the loss of federal dollars in areas such as DEI, immigration, criminal justice, climate justice, and international aid. Now Congress has approved another raft of cuts to social safety-net programs, chopping more than $1 trillionin funding for Medicaid over the next 10 years and retracting billions of dollars in previously approved funding for international development and public media.
Trump believes that slashing grant dollars to nonprofits might help reduce the potential for “corruption, waste, fraud, and abuse,” White House spokesperson Kush Desai recently told the Associated Press, adding, “The Trump administration is focused on unleashing America’s economic resurgence to fuel Americans’ individual generosity.” Some foundation leaders disagree with this characterization of the sector and expect to see more nonprofits struggle financially as government funds are pulled back.
“The administration’s withdrawal of support for health-care access and sustainability initiatives and investments in things like fair housing will have such a bad effect on communities out there that even more robust nonprofit work won’t be able to make up for it,” said Julián Castro, CEO of the California-based Latino Community Foundation and former HUD secretary under President Barack Obama. “Philanthropy funds can only do so much. It’s a fantasy to think the gap is going to be filled completely by it.”
The multibillion dollar jolts to federal spending are orders of magnitude greater than what groups like the Latino Community Foundation can give. Even so, such groups are trying to do as much as they can, Castro said.
Castro noted the foundation has delivered more than $7 millionto grantees this year — its highest midyear grant total ever. Much of that funding went to relief efforts for people affected by the recent wildfires in southern California. Newer grantshave been directed to community-based organizations providing legal aid for detained immigrants as well as emergency assistance to immigrant families.
The foundation expects to distribute more than $8 million in grant funding this year, Castro said. And it is considering how to assist nonprofits in the coming years as the administration’s crackdown on immigration likely intensifies and more organizations are affected by the loss of government money, he said, adding that one option is providing multiyear rather than year-to-year grants.
“We’re going to work hard to meet the moment,” he said. “We’re determined to do as much as we can.”
In the Washington, D.C., region, the Meyer Foundation has been providing rapid response grants of $10,000 to $20,000 to groups focused on racial justice and systems change. The foundation’s board recently approved pulling an additional $6.5 million from its more than $200 million endowment for these grants. That has allowed the Meyer Foundation to increase its rapid response funding for the year from $500,000 to $1 million, according to Leni Dworkis, director of the foundation’s partnerships and strategy for Maryland. The foundation plans to allocate $1 million to the fund in 2026 and 2027 as well, Dworkis said.
Additionally, the Meyer Foundation is pooling funds with the Greater Washington Community Foundation to provide bridge grants to nonprofits that have experienced severe funding losses since January or that want to consider mergers, wind-downs, or other strategic options in response to the changing nonprofit landscape.
“We’re in communication with our grantee partners and really listening to how they’re having to adapt. My hope is that we are a funder who is responsive,” said Jaqueline Tucker, the foundation’s vice president for community partnerships and strategy.
Grantees want additional help in areas such as affordable housing advocacy and addressing increasing food insecurity, Tucker said.
Another regional funder, the Boston Foundation, delivered in April more than$2.6 million in “safety-net grants” to groups serving marginalized and vulnerable communities and expects to launch another round of emergency grants that could focus on causes seeing deep federal cuts, such as food security and community health centers, said Orlando Watkins, vice president and chief program officer at the foundation.
“What’s going to happen to these really critical health centers?” Watkins said. “We’re thinking about how to protect these institutions and help them think about how they might change their business model a little bit.”
In the months ahead, the foundation is considering “philanthropic capital” to encourage grantees to adopt artificial intelligence tools to make operations more efficient and assistance to nonprofits contemplating mergers or other models for sharing services and resources, Watkins said. The Boston Foundation wants to use flexible, philanthropic dollars to aid nonprofit leaders to think more strategically as government funding diminishes, he added.
Increased Payouts and a $1 Billion Fund
Nationwide, there has been a surge in foundations increasing payouts in response to President Trump’s policies. While many major funders have not directly criticized the administration, a coalition of groups and individuals across the political spectrum — including the Ballmer Group, Gates Foundation, Stand Together, Valhalla Foundation, and hedge fund manager John Overdeck — recently launched a $1 billion initiative to support economic mobility for low-income Americans. The announcement comes just weeks after the Gates Foundation announced it would spend out $200 billionover the next 20 years.
The Gates Foundation has said its decision to sunset the organization was made before Trump’s re-election and the administration’s decision to nearly eliminate all U.S. funding for global health, one of the foundation’s core priorities. However, it is now reinforcing support for areas that the Trump administration has de-prioritized, such as global vaccine development, Gates Foundation CEO Mark Suzman told the Chronicle of Philanthropy. Domestically, the Gates Foundation’s primary focus will be on education, Suzman said. The Trump administration has frozen billions of dollars in education funding.
LGBTQ rights also are seeing a boost from major funders. Last month the Ford Foundationpledged $16 millionto the Fund Our Futures campaign to support LGBTQ movements globally at a time when U.S. funding for LGBTQ resources isbeing eliminated.
The Trump administration has also eliminated nearly all foreign aid, closed the U.S. Agency for International Development, and downsized the State Department. This month congressional lawmakers took the additional step of green-lighting the Trump administration’s plan to chop $8 billion in previously approved foreign assistance funding. Funders for international causes know they won’t be able to fill these massive funding gaps. The Foreign Aid Bridge Fund, started by Unlock Aid to help fund nonprofits affected by U.S. foreign aid cuts, shuttered in April after raising $2 million, $3 million short of its goal.
“The Foreign Aid Bridge Fund was always meant to be a bridge, not a permanent solution,” the group wrote in a recent blog post.
Meanwhile, fundraising efforts by groups like the Founders Pledge, a charitable giving initiative for entrepreneurs, and the Life You Can Save, which helps funders identify highly effective nonprofits, are ongoing. The two organizations have raised more than $7.5 million through their Rapid Response Fund for international aid. Through a partnership with Project Resource Optimization, the plan is to deliver funds to groups they deem high-impact and cost-effective, such as Catholic Relief Services and the International Rescue Committee.
Said Matt Lerner, managing director of research at the Founders Pledge: “What we’re trying to do is reorient some of our work in global health and development around higher leverage stuff.”
