The US non-profit sector is reeling from the double whammy of increased calls on its services and severe cuts in its federal funding.
Since President Donald Trump returned to office in January 2025, his administration has waged war on non-profit organisations. Actions have included federal funding cuts to the tune of billions of dollars, targeting of specific organisations with investigations or indictments and threats to tax-exempt status. While some efforts have been turned back by the courts, the administration has been unrelenting; sadly, every American community will suffer as a result of this sustained attack.
Presidential announcements warn of ‘anti-American NGOs’ and allege, without any credible evidence, that networks of non-profits are acting as ‘domestic terrorist organisations’. Recently, the administration issued proposed regulations intended to impose sweeping new restrictions on non-profits that receive federal funding – including that such organisations not advance diversity, equity and inclusion or assist in voter registration.
The consequences of these attacks are dire. New data from a survey our organisation conducted earlier this year show that non-profits, which employ one in 10 Americans, are reeling. We see a dramatic increase in burnout among non-profit leaders, whose stresses often include new worries about the safety of their staff and those they serve; financial distress as more organisations book deficits; increased difficulty raising funds from foundations (which are facing unprecedented demand as non-profits look to replace lost government funding); and, cutbacks to programs and staff in order to keep their doors open.
On top of all this, demand for non-profits’ services has increased as communities struggle amid higher inflation and cuts to federal programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
Fully two-thirds of non-profit leaders say they have concerns about their organisation’s financial sustainability. We’re seeing a growing number pause operations, scaled-back services or closures. This is happening to organisations that provide vital services to people of every geography, party affiliation and political ideology – services such as food, housing and substance abuse prevention; assistance for survivors of sexual assault; teen violence prevention; and general community support.
This attack on the non-profit sector is unprecedented. In his 1988 Republic National Convention speech accepting the nomination for president, George H W Bush famously talked about local non-profits as “a brilliant diversity spread like stars, like a thousand points of light in a broad and peaceful sky”. In a similar vein, non-profit leader and former Democratic cabinet official John Gardner once quipped, “If you can’t find a non-profit institution that you can honestly disrespect, then something has gone wrong with our pluralism”.
This vision of organisations pursuing varied and diverse objectives has its roots in the origins of the United States and in the First Amendment. It was famously observed by French philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville in 1835, who remarked, with admiration, that Americans are ‘forever forming associations’. He saw these organisations as a ballast to a strong democracy – and a deterrent to despotism.
Whether they know it or not, every American’s life is touched for the better by non-profits: through an after-school program, visits to a museum or a trail created by a local land conservation non-profit, or help provided by frontline human services organisations like food pantries or domestic violence shelters. Non-profits provide job training to veterans and other populations needing support. They do crucial research on diseases. They staff crisis hotlines, clean up parks and streets, and rush in to help after a natural disaster. “Nonprofits have been taken for granted in American society as institutions that will always be there to catch us when we fall,” notes Akilah Watkins of Independent Sector.
Most non-profits are small and community based. They are the infrastructure of American communities and, by law, non-partisan; many are religiously affiliated. In practice, local non-profits are one of the few places that volunteers and staff come together in pursuit of the common good without regard to political party or ideology.
This crisis is unlike anything either of us have seen in our 25-year careers working in philanthropy. Non-profits experienced a similar increase in demand in 2020 during the pandemic, but, at that time, the federal government increased funding to non-profits to help them navigate the crisis. This time, it is the government that has created the crisis, by cutting funds that have been duly congressionally allocated and by targeting organisations with which it disagrees.
The federal government has historically relied on non-profits to deliver a range of essential services to people in communities across the country, regardless of their political affiliation. While the government has targeted specific nonprofits before – during the civil rights movement, for example – this administration is going after the entire sector.
It is this attack on nonprofits that is, in fact, anti-American.
Every American should be concerned about the health of the American non-profit sector. The time is now to make your support known publicly by giving whatever you can to the nonprofits in your community that you care about – whether that’s money, time, or both.
As Diane Yentel of the National Council of Non-profits says:
Non-profits are the backbone of this country, providing critical support to improve communities and save lives. Defending and supporting them should not divide us along political lines – it should unite all Americans.
Republished from Common Dreams
Phil Buchanan