SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
federal funding
Trump Is Winning The War on Nonprofits
The administration has created an unprecedented crisis for nonprofits by cutting funds that have been duly congressionally allocated and by targeting organizations with which it disagrees.
Jun 24, 2026
Since President Donald Trump returned to office in January 2025, his administration has waged war on nonprofits. Actions have included federal funding cuts to the tune of billions of dollars, targeting of specific organizations 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 and, 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 nonprofits are acting as “domestic terrorist organizations.” Recently, the administration issued proposed regulations intended to impose sweeping new restrictions on nonprofits that receive federal funding—including that such organizations not advance diversity, equity, and inclusion or assist in voter registration.
The consequences of these attacks are dire. New data from a survey our organization conducted earlier this year show that nonprofits, which employ 1 in 10 Americans, are reeling. We see a dramatic increase in burnout among nonprofit leaders, whose stresses often include new worries about the safety of their staff and those they serve; financial distress as more organizations book deficits; increased difficulty raising funds from foundations (which are facing unprecedented demand as nonprofits 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 nonprofits’ services has increased as communities struggle amid higher inflation and cuts to federal programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
Fully two-thirds of nonprofit leaders say they have concerns about their organizations’ financial sustainability. We’re seeing a growing number pause operations, scale back services, or close altogether. This is happening to organizations 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.
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.
This attack on the nonprofit sector is unprecedented. In his 1988 Republican National Convention speech accepting the nomination for president, George H.W. Bush famously talked about local nonprofits as “a brilliant diversity spread like stars, like a thousand points of light in a broad and peaceful sky.” In a similar vein, nonprofit leader and former Democratic cabinet official John Gardner once quipped, “If you can’t find a nonprofit institution that you can honestly disrespect, then something has gone wrong with our pluralism.”
This vision of organizations pursuing varied and diverse objectives has its roots in the origins of this country and in the First Amendment, and was famously observed by French philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville in 1835 who remarked, with admiration, that Americans are “forever forming associations.” He saw these organizations 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 nonprofits: through an after-school program, visits to a museum or a trail created by a local land conservation nonprofit, or help provided by frontline human services organizations like food pantries or domestic violence shelters. Nonprofits 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 nonprofits are small and community based, and they are the infrastructure of American communities. They are, by law, nonpartisan; many are religiously affiliated. In practice, local nonprofits 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. Nonprofits experienced a similar increase in demand in 2020 during the pandemic, but, at that time, the federal government increased funding to nonprofits 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 organizations with which it disagrees.
The federal government has historically relied on nonprofits 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 as a whole.
It is this attack on nonprofits that is, in fact, anti-American.
Every American should be concerned about the health of the American nonprofit 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 Nonprofits says: “Nonprofits 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.”
Keep ReadingShow Less
Three More Top Universities Reject Trump's Extortion Compact for Funding
Brown University, the University of Southern California, and the University of Pennsylvania—the president's alma mater—all rejected the proposal.
Oct 16, 2025
Three more leading US universities have joined the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in rejecting President Donald Trump's compact that critics have condemned as an "extortion agreement" and "loyalty oath" for federal funding.
Brown University's Wednesday decision and Thursday announcements from the University of Southern California and the University of Pennsylvania came ahead of the Trump administration's October 20 deadline for the nine initially invited schools to respond to the "Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education."
Although the University of Texas said it was "honored" to receive the offer, it has not officially signed on to the compact to receive priority access to federal funding and other "benefits." Neither has any of the other institutions: the University of Arizona, Dartmouth College, Vanderbilt University, and the University of Virginia.
Bloomberg reported Monday that "a few days after MIT rebuffed the proposal, the administration extended the offering to all higher education institutions," citing an unnamed person familiar with the matter.
Brown's president, Christina Paxson, released her full letter to Education Secretary Linda McMahon and other Trump officials on Wednesday. She pointed out that "on July 30, Brown signed a voluntary resolution agreement with the government that advances a number of the high-level principles articulated in the compact, while maintaining core tenets of academic freedom and self-governance that have sustained the excellence of American higher education across generations."
"While a number of provisions in the compact reflect similar principles as the July agreement—as well as our own commitments to affordability and the free exchange of ideas—I am concerned that the compact by its nature and by various provisions would restrict academic freedom and undermine the autonomy of Brown's governance, critically compromising our ability to fulfill our mission," Paxson wrote. "While we value our long-held and well-regarded partnership with the federal government, Brown is respectfully declining to join the compact."
Penn, also part of the Ivy League, rejected the compact on Thursday. In a statement, its president, Dr. J. Larry Jameson, said that "for 285 years, Penn has been anchored and guided by continuous self-improvement, using education as a ladder for opportunity, and advancing discoveries that serve our community, our nation, and the world."
"I have sought input from faculty, alumni, trustees, students, staff, and others who care deeply about Penn," with the goal of ensuring that "our response reflected our values and the perspectives of our broad community," Jameson detailed. "Penn respectfully declines to sign the proposed compact," and provided the US Department of Education with "focused feedback highlighting areas of existing alignment as well as substantive concerns."
"At Penn, we are committed to merit-based achievement and accountability," he added. "The long-standing partnership between American higher education and the federal government has greatly benefited society and our nation. Shared goals and investment in talent and ideas will turn possibility into progress."
As The Daily Pennsylvanian, the campus newspaper, noted:
At a Wednesday meeting, Penn's Faculty Senate overwhelmingly passed a resolution urging the University to reject the agreement.
"The 'compact’ erodes the foundation on which higher education in the United States is built," the October 15 resolution read. "The University of Pennsylvania Faculty Senate urges President Jameson and the Board of Trustees to reject it and any other proposal that similarly threatens our mission and values."
Penn is the alma mater of Trump and Marc Rowan, a billionaire private equity financier who helped craft the compact.
The Trump White House told the student newspaper that "any higher education institution unwilling to assume accountability and confront these overdue and necessary reforms will find itself without future government and taxpayers' support."
Despite the risk of funding loss, the University of Southern California also rejected the proposal on Thursday. In a statement to the campus paper, the Daily Trojan, interim president Beong-Soo Kim said that "although USC has declined to join the proposed compact, we look forward to contributing our perspectives, insights, and Trojan values to an important national conversation about the future of higher education."
Critics of the compact have called on educational leaders to oppose it. In a joint statement earlier this month, American Association of University Professors president Todd Wolfson and American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten urged "all college and university governing boards, campus administrations, academic disciplinary organizations, and higher education trade groups to reject such collusion with the Trump administration and to stand firmly on the side of free expression and higher education as the anchor of opportunity for all."
Acquiescing, they argued, "would be a profound betrayal of your students, staff, faculty, the public, higher education, and our shared democracy—one that would irretrievably tarnish your personal reputation and compromise your institution's legacy. We urge you not to capitulate and not to negotiate but to unite now in defense of democracy and higher education."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Our Universities Must Not Fold to Trump's Authoritarian Compact
This compact goes against every democratic principle our country and our schools should uphold, and we reject the Trump administration’s attempt to cajole universities into compliance through explicit bribery.
Oct 06, 2025
We are students at the nine universities most recently targeted by President Donald Trump. We've spent years demanding that our universities improve conditions for students, lower tuition, and create spaces for the free exchange of ideas. No one told us the way to influence our universities was simply to bribe them with millions of dollars of federal funding.
On October 1, the Trump administration sent our schools a 10-point memo titled "Compact for excellence in higher education." If adopted, the compact would limit international student enrollment, force universities to share student information with the federal government, enforce the adoption of a specific definition of gender and threaten affinity spaces, and take action against actors that “punish, belittle, and even spark violence against conservative ideas.” In return, our universities are promised increased access to federal funding opportunities. If they don't comply? Well, any school can “elect to forgo federal benefits.”
This compact goes against every democratic principle our country and our schools should uphold, and we reject the Trump administration’s attempt to cajole universities into compliance through explicit bribery. It should go without saying that extorting universities to comply with ideological demands and quell freedom of speech is antidemocratic, but here we are.
In a public statement, White House Official May Mailman claimed that our nine universities—Brown, the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Arizona, Dartmouth, MIT, the University of Pennsylvania, Vanderbilt, the University of Virginia, and the University of Southern California—were chosen because they are "good actors." In other words, the Trump administration expects our universities to fold. And they expect to use our compliance as a green light to force universities across the country into similar agreements.
If any one of our universities agrees to this compact, it risks creating a chain reaction for the higher education system at-large to side with tyrants over students.
Here's the thing—we cannot deny that Trump's compact pointed out some very real issues in our higher education system. It is true that "too many young adults have become saddled with life-altering debt." It is true that "truth-seeking is a core function of institutions of higher education." For decades, young people have borne the brunt of our country's refusal to invest in education. As federal funding has fallen, administrator salaries have ballooned while faculty, staff, and graduate worker wages have stagnated and tuition prices have skyrocketed. Today, many of our schools are run more like hedge funds than like centers of learning. That's why we have continuously demanded that our government and our universities make higher education more accessible, and allow us to freely share our viewpoints on campus.
Trump's memo, however, does not actually sincerely seek to confront these issues. It is a thinly-veiled attempt to undermine fundamental principles of university independence and attack vulnerable students, and it is a clear instance of authoritarian overreach. Trump claims to value "truth-seeking," yet limits what "truth" can be sought. The compact places surveillance on what ideas can and cannot be present in the campus setting, requiring screening of international students for "anti-American" values. Under the guise of promoting campus discourse, it gives institutions the tools to gut departments that the Trump administration could frame as "belittling" conservative ideas. What counts as an "anti-American" value or "belittling" conservative ideas is malleable to the Trump administration's vantage point. The compact also effectively bans peaceful campus protest, a crucial part of civil discourse on our campuses.
To define a "free marketplace of ideas" by its adherence to a specific set of ideas and exclusion of a specific set of individuals is not creating a free marketplace at all: It's breeding authoritarianism.
This compact also asks our universities to commit to repression of LGBTQ+ students, including "biological" definitions of sex and gender, that would strip our queer students of protections and resources crucial to their right to a free and safe education. For LGBTQ+ students, this compact is not just a "political" attack; it is an immediate threat to our education and survival.
And this comes after a speech-chilling effect has already taken over our campuses. Students who dared to speak out in support of Palestine, especially, have faced extreme repression on campus, including police sweeps, expulsions, and attempted deportations. Over the summer, we watched as Brown University and the University of Pennsylvania signed agreements that sold students' personal information to the Department of Justice, excluded trans students from university life, and stripped them of their healthcare. We watched as the University of Virginia acquiesced to the Department of Justice's demands to dissolve diversity, equity, and inclusion offices against the wishes of the university community and forced President Jim Ryan to step down. We've watched our peers, Mahmoud Khalil and Rumeysa Öztürk, taken for daring to speak against Israel's genocide, and we continue to watch as Immigraton and Customs Enforcement takes our community members on and near our campuses.
The founding principles of our universities—quality education free from censorship, workforce development, and shared governance of university structures—have been under attack for decades. The solution is not to take a bribe from a wannabe-dictator who wants to trojan-horse exclusionary policies under the guise of protecting American students. The solution is to listen to the students, faculty, and staff who actually make our schools run.
This memo was sent out during a government shutdown. While key government programs are stopped and unknown numbers of federal employees are furloughed, the Trump administration is seeking ways to expand its power. If any one of our universities agrees to this compact, it risks creating a chain reaction for the higher education system at-large to side with tyrants over students. We demand that our universities do not fold, and do not sign.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular