Funding cuts, higher demand, and federal actions targeting Harvard all make for a bleak picture that non-profits in Massachusetts are keeping tabs on. The issues were front and center at a conference discussing the sector and a recent survey on how its members are feeling.
Non-profit workers say they are not optimistic about the sector’s future under the new Trump administration, according to a new survey.
“You will not be surprised to hear me say that the survey does not have good news - we face, really, an existential threat,” said Jim Klocke, CEO of the Massachusetts Nonprofit Network.
Klocke and other non-profit industry officials gathered in Boston Monday to discuss the release of the “MA Nonprofits Federal Impacts Survey” – a snapshot of sector sentiment from between February and March, published by the Mass INC Polling Group, MNN and The Boston Foundation.
Streamed by The Boston Foundation, the event focused on how 523 non-profit leaders and employees responded to the survey, conducted at a time when federal cuts and grants were already being withdrawn, with more to come.
“The question was, ‘Do you think Massachusetts will be better off or worse off under the Trump administration’ more or less,” said MassINC President Steve Koczela as he went through various results. “And you can see that 77 percent said that they think that the state of Massachusetts will be ‘much worse off.’ Another 14 percent said ‘a little worse off,’ and just about 2 percent said any version of ‘better off.’”
The same sentiment – and roughly the same percentages – carried over when respondents were asked how they thought those they serve would fare.
The answers were given in the wake of a federal memo calling for a “temporary pause” on funding for numerous federal programs and grants – part of a review of spending demanded of all federal agencies.
The memo was ultimately rescinded and the freeze taken up by the courts, but the government has since continued to cut or cancel grants across the board – bad news for the country’s 100,000 or so public charities that received more than $267 billion in government grants in 2021 alone, according to the Urban Institute.
“We then asked nonprofits how they think the work of their organization will be affected under the Trump administration, and right up top, we see a majority, 58 percent, saying they expect anticipated funding cuts and the next major impact being on the populations they serve,” said Zayna Basma-Doyle, Research Director at MassINC, adding that eight percent of respondents also indicated they “already lost funding” by the time the poll was conducted.
“This survey was done in late February to early March, and we anticipate that number would be a lot higher if we did the survey right now,” she noted.
The survey indicates 58 percent of respondents receive some form of federal funding. Of those, 89 percent said they expect to see funding decreases. The rest were either unsure, refused to answer or expected it to stay the same – none expected a funding raise.
Overall, 64 percent said they also expect demand for their non-profit’s services to increase – with respondents working with incarcerated populations, seniors, transit riders and immigrants especially expecting higher demand.
In Massachusetts alone, non-profits employ at least 500,000 people, with 1.1 million residents making a charitable donation to a nonprofit last year, says Klocke.
It’s hard to tell how many jobs have been shed so far in the state and nationally due to cuts. But at this rate, says National Council of Nonprofits president and CEO Diane Yentel, the industry will almost definitely be in a different place by the end of the year.
“There's really no way for the non-profit sector to end this year in a neutral place, there’s no way to end the year more or less where we started,” she said. “We'll either end the year somewhere on a spectrum of harm - from somewhat harmed to really, potentially decimated, or, I really believe, we can end it strengthened in the way that we respond to this moment. So, strengthened, not just in spite of, but because of these threats that we face.”
Yentel adds that, on top of funding threats, there’s the emerging threat of the federal government exploring how to go about stripping certain types of nonprofits of their tax-exempt status.
The Trump administration is working to strip Harvard University of its tax-exempt status – a legally dubious threat the president has repeated as the university resists implementing reforms demanded by the White House.
Shanique Rodriguez is executive director of the organization Massachusetts Voter Table
“We cannot lose the Harvard fight - not because it's Harvard, but because it represents intellectual freedom, first amendment rights, you name it,” Rodriguez said. “[If] Harvard goes down, every institution goes down. That is one of those fights you cannot afford to lose.”
