Nonprofit organizations operate at the crossroads of policy and political engagement. Regardless of how you voted or your thoughts about the election results yesterday, political outcomes affect nonprofit organizations and, more specifically, grant writing.
A bit of history…
In the 1960s, former President Johnson declared a “war on poverty,” which established a new type of relationship between nonprofits and the federal government. Federal and state grants increased, and thousands of new nonprofits were created as a result. Existing nonprofits grew to depend more heavily on government grant funding.
When President Reagan was elected, he rolled back several programs linking the government to the nonprofit sector and substantially cut federal grant funding to nonprofits. Many nonprofits were forced to close their doors, and others shifted to foundation grants, donors, and aggressive fundraising.
Former President H.W. Bush introduced the Points of Light campaign to encourage volunteerism and community initiatives. Former President Bill Clinton signed the National and Community Service Trust Act in 1993, establishing AmeriCorps and the Corporation for National and Community Service. This was a show of support for nonprofits and allocated new federal funding to nonprofits, among many other benefits.
Former President Obama created the Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation to assist nonprofit organizations with capacity building . He also allocated $750 billion in stimulus money available to nonprofits through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
Fast forward to today. What could this upcoming Trump presidency mean for the grant writing industry?
The Brookings Institute, a nonpartisan nonprofit public policy research organization analyzed President-elect Trump’s proposed policies and budgets and the results provide us with insights to help us navigate the future of grant writing.
Here are some of the proposed changes:
- Reductions of 25-30% to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)
- Aggressive scaling back of public and subsidized health programs like Medicaid, ACA, and CHIP.
- Reduction and elimination of housing-related programs.
- Reduction and elimination of various cash assistance programs like TANF and SSI.
- Scaled back funding for job training, Job Corps, and work study programs.
- Elimination of safety net programs for immigrants awaiting their permanent residence or green cards.
- Reduction of non-defense discretionary programs such as WIC, LIHEAP, Head Start, Legal Services Corp., and Job Corps
In light of these proposed changes, I plan to analyze each of my client’s grant portfolio. I am going to calculate the amounts of HOME program grants, Community Development Block Grants, or other federal and state funding and plan to replace that funding with foundation and corporate grant funding.
If my client serves low-income populations and/or individuals with disabilities (all my clients do), I am going to assume that I will need to increase my grant budget by 20-30% over the next year to account for the increase in need of social services that will result in many of the policy changes.
Historically, during policy changes like the ones proposed, nonprofit organizations struggle to keep up with the need for services. Grant writers have the opportunity to get ahead of the surge and begin planning and preparing so that we are in the best possible position to support our organizations and the communities we serve.
If we are smart and strategic, we will have job security and the nonprofits we serve will thrive.
Until next time,
Write Epic Grants
P.S. Are you new to Write Epic Grants? Don’t worry; all past emails are archived here. Head over there and don’t miss a thing.