Since Inauguration Day, President Donald Trump’s blizzard of executive orders have stopped cold vast flows of federal funding. As bills that the federal government had promised to pay come due across the nonprofit and business sectors, those left in the lurch are looking for stopgap measures. So far, though, there has been little visible response from philanthropy, with most funders also remaining silent on the unfolding crisis.
Unlike during the initial phase of the COVID pandemic, few funders have publicly deployed emergency funding and rapid-response grants. Among the exceptions are Mark Muller and his team at the Regenerative Agriculture Foundation, who launched into action after the federal government halted reimbursements owed to America’s farmers and ranchers for expenses like irrigation for newly planted orchards and delivery trucks for delivering frozen poultry.
The regrantor and a fellow funding intermediary, Rural Climate Partnership, started distributing a $1.7-million round of emergency recoverable grants to 25 recipients late last month, issued from the pair’s Soil Health Opportunities and Tools Fund, known as the SHOT fund, to organizations facing urgent financial challenges.
“This is a time for action,” Muller said. “We’re going to lose years of good, hard work on the ground that has happened if philanthropy can’t step up.”
Last month, the two organizations surveyed their grantees and partners, along with the networks of four other funders. Of the more than 100 organizations that responded, 60% had already heard that their federal awards are paused or awaiting review and nearly 50% were facing an immediate cash flow crisis. Almost a third said they would lay off staff within the following 60 days if the funding pause continues.
The survey found a total funding gap of more than $30.8 million, but that leaves out a large share of those surveyed. Nearly 38% of respondents had yet to either hear about their project or submit a request for a reimbursement. The government might not pay their bills, too. “It’s really dire,” said Muller.
The two regrantors’ rapid-response grants appear to be one of precious few such efforts, at least within agricultural philanthropy. Muller had not heard of any similar multifunder effort, and could only name a couple of foundations, including Eric and Wendy Schmidt’s 11th Hour Project, that are making moves. That’s what motivated him to speak out.
“I heard too many funders say, ‘We’re still trying to assess what we’re going to do,’” he said.
The emergency funding round by SHOT was paid for by $500,000 from the NoRegrets Initiative, as well as by drawing on existing funding from Laurene Powell Jobs’ Waverley Street Foundation, 11th Hour Project and Crown Family Philanthropies. The grants are technically 90% recoverable, so it is possible SHOT will see most of the money returned, though Muller expects only some to be paid back.
While Muller said some grantees expressed concerns about being publicly identified, 15 of the 25 recipients, 60% of the grantee pool, indicated they could be named. The organizations are both national and state-based, and include both demographic-based groups, like Kansas Black Farmers Association and Comunidad Maya Pixan Ixim, and thematically oriented networks such as Organic Association of Kentucky, Western Landowners Alliance and Fibershed.
“Wait and see”: Food and ag funders are relatively quiet
While rapid-response funding still appears to be rare, grantmakers are highly motivated to learn about what is going on right now, said Clare Fox, executive director Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems Funders, a network of nearly 120 organizations. Some 187 people — a “really large turnout,” Fox said — attended a webinar last month on the federal funding freezes and cuts, followed by a members-only strategy call with roughly 45 participants.
But interest has not yet meant action. A poll during the latter event found just 4% had ideas to share, while nearly 70% said they were looking for ideas
“Sadly, we’re not seeing much response from the membership” in terms of funding, Fox said. “We’re seeing a lot of ‘wait and see.’” Maggie Mascarenhas, public policy manager for SAFSF, added: “I wish that there were more emergency response examples that we could point you to right now.”
Fox said she has seen interest among SAFSF members in uncommon funding mechanisms, like recoverable grants or loan guarantees for community development financial institutions (CDFIs). Some are focused on providing legal support on topics like contract law, or connecting nonprofits with congressional representatives. Many are considering increasing payout. Others urged DAFs to self-impose spending minimums.
But from what Fox and Mascarenhas have seen, most efforts remain in the discussion phase — and those chats have stayed private. SAFSF members are concerned about speaking publicly, and worry about what SAFSF or they put in writing on the network’s listservs or in emails, Fox said.
Fox emphasized that such security concerns are valid, but she is concerned that many philanthropies are choosing to avoid all risk rather than take action.
“This is a leadership moment, and we really hope funders will step outside of their comfort zone,” she said. “They’re simply just not under attack in the same way as their grantees are.
“Yes, protect your grantees, but share what you’re doing. Take a stand, be bold, use your voice,” she added. “You might put a target on your back, but you probably have the resources to withstand that. We’re talking foundations with legal teams, right? … It’s important that they use those resources in these times.”
Related Inside Philanthropy Resources:
For Subscribers Only
What might we expect in terms of emergency response going forward?
The firehose of developments from the White House is making planning tough for everyone, including philanthropists. SAFSF, for instance, did not record its webinar because of the fast-changing policy landscape.
Sarah Wentzel-Fisher, a land and agriculture policy officer at the Thornburg Foundation, said many grantmakers are still working on next steps because “everything is so unclear.”
Thornburg did not contribute to the SHOT fund, but Wentzel-Fisher has been involved in funder discussions about responses. The Santa Fe, New Mexico-based foundation’s board also voted late last month to increase its $6.5 million annual grantmaking budget by $500,000.
She noted that current philanthropic funding is not enough to cover federal gaps, but said she expects more such measures from foundations. “They’re taking other types of crisis action we’ll see roll out in short order,” she said. Several larger national funders, notably the MacArthur Foundation and Freedom Together (formerly the JPB Foundation) are also bumping their payout rates.
Pooled funds and regrantors may be one area for joint action. Joint funding methods were already booming, especially through the COVID era, due in part to their lower barriers of entry and ready-made infrastructure. Reduced or shared risk for contributing funders is also a big factor. Muller noted it was easier for his organization, which lacks an endowment or reputational concerns, to act. “We can and should be willing to take more risk,” he said.
Some SAFSF members seem to agree. “Some funders aren’t willing to kind of go first, but they are willing to potentially join a pooled fund that could give them a little bit more cover, so to speak,” Mascarenhas said. “That’s another really big interest that’s coming up in our network.”
In the coming months and years, the present pain will only multiply, assuming the Republican majority gets its way, Mascarenhas said. She urged funders to consider setting up infrastructure to respond to the waves of crises ahead.
“The budget frameworks that are coming out of the Senate right now that are basically wanting to sacrifice billions of dollars [in federal spending] to fund tax cuts for billionaires,” she said. “It’s not just the current federal funding freeze.” IP Editor-in-Chief David Callahan explored these dynamics in a recent column.
Muller, too, knows that SHOT’s recent grants were a stopgap measure. He said there are “hard decisions” ahead for philanthropy about which organizations survive. But he expressed befuddlement with peers taking no action at all. “If we, as philanthropy as a whole, don’t recognize this as a time that we can do something, it makes me wonder: ‘why are we in this field?’”
Note (3/17/25): This article previously included an incorrect figure from an SAFSF poll during a members-only webinar.
