Good afternoon,

What you need to know this week: Federal employee charity drive put on hold, federal program for affordable housing in limbo, $16 billion in climate grants remain frozen, and more.

—Tamara Straus, senior editor

AP Photo

• Pause or cancellation? The Trump administration has paused the 2025 Combined Federal Campaign — the largest workplace giving drive in the country, the Washington Post reports. The Office of Personnel Management, which runs the campaign, did not provide a reason for the pause.
• $9 billion since the ’60s: The campaign raised nearly $9 billion for charities over the past six decades, allowing federal workers to contribute part of their paycheck to favorite causes. Nonprofits that rely heavily on CFC donations — such as St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and Doctors Without Borders — are in limbo, having paid participation fees.
• No taxpayer dollars: “Frankly, I don’t understand or know why the government wouldn’t run the campaign,” said Jim Starr, CEO of America’s Charities, which is supporting about 100 charities in the campaign. “No taxpayer dollars are used to fund it, all the costs of the campaign are absorbed by the participating charities, and it’s a great way for government employees to support charitable causes that they care about in their community and across the country.”
• Previously high overhead: A 2018 Chronicle article reported that the costs to run and promote the 2017 campaign consumed more than $1 in $4 pledged by government workers to nonprofits.

• Building low-cost homes: President Trump wants to eliminate the HOME Investment Partnerships Program, which provides grants to states and municipalities, often in partnership with nonprofits, to create affordable housing, reports the Associated Press. House Republicans overseeing federal budget negotiations did not include funding for it in their budget proposal.
• Bush-era program: Started under President George H.W. Bush in 1990, the program has spent more than $38 billion nationwide and helped build or repair more than 1.3 million affordable homes, of which at least 540,000 were in congressional districts that are rural or significantly rural, according to the AP.
• What state housing agents say: HOME’s elimination would set back tens of thousands of future affordable housing developments nationwide, particularly hurting Appalachian towns and rural counties where government aid is sparse, investors are few, and voters largely backed Trump in the last election.

• Pay disparity: Women make up the majority of CEOs at smaller organizations, but they represent less than a third of CEOs at organizations with annual budgets of more than $50 million, according to a Candid report analyzed by the Chronicle. About 58 percent of nonprofits with budgets of $250,000 or less were led by women, while just 31 percent of those with budgets of more than $50 million had female CEOs — and the median compensation for female executives was lower than that of male CEOs at organizations of all sizes.
• Less diversity to come? In a moment when the smaller nonprofits that women tend to lead are being strained by federal funding cuts and layoffs, the trend of women being shut out of top positions at bigger organizations may result in less diversity among nonprofit leaders.
• Nonprofit opportunity: “Nonprofits have an opportunity here to pull from top talent that the federal government lost,” said Misty Heggeness, a professor at the University of Kansas, in a Chronicle story about the rising number of women leaving the work force since January.

• Court ruling: Several nonprofits lost a case Tuesday regarding the federal government’s decision to cancel $16 billion in climate grants previously committed by the Biden administration,” the New York Times reports.
• Jurisdiction at issue: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit found that the Trump administration had the right to claw back the funds as part of its “proper stewardship of billions of taxpayer dollars.” But the court also ruled it did not have jurisdiction in the case and determined it should next be heard in the Court of Federal Claims.
• Not over yet: Beth Bafford, chief executive of Climate United, an organization that was awarded nearly $7 billion in grants, said, “While we are disappointed by the panel’s decision, we stand firm on the merits of our case. The EPA unlawfully froze and terminated funds that were legally obligated and disbursed.” In June, Bafford wrote an opinion piece for the Chronicle about her organization’s decision to fight the administration’s actions.

• Pediatric cancer research cuts: The Pediatric Brain Tumor Consortium, an association of 16 academic centers and children’s hospitals dedicated to trials of novel treatments for pediatric brain cancer, will stop enrolling new patients due to federal funding cuts, the New York Times reports.
• Republicans attack Wikipedia: House Republicans launched an investigation into Wikipedia, alleging “efforts to manipulate information” through the nonprofit internet encyclopedia “for propaganda aimed at Western audiences,” especially regarding Israel, USA Today reports.
• Smithsonian Latino Gallery closes: A temporary space for the National Museum of the American Latino closed for nine months in preparation for America’s 250th anniversary programming, Hyperallergic reports.

“This is the time that we really do need to figure out how we build empathy through stories and not necessarily saying, ‘You’re wrong or you’re right.’ You just show the world what can be and what should be.”

— Cindy Eggleton, CEO and co-founder of Brilliant Cities, a Detroit-based early childhood development nonprofit, in Associated Press article about nonprofit storytelling

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