🔒CT nonprofits search for answers — and potential survival — amid federal funding cuts, uncertainty

Roca, a Massachusetts-based nonprofit focused on community violence intervention, launched a program in Hartford four years ago specifically targeting at-risk young women.

“We are getting referrals for young women who are victims of non-fatal shootings, who are engaged in human trafficking, who are experiencing high levels of sexual violence,” said Sunindiya Bhalla, an executive vice president and program lead at Roca. “Hartford in many ways has escalated our understanding of what community violence looks like among young women, and the role they play and how they’re impacted.” In fact, it’s one of the few community violence intervention programs in the country focused exclusively on women and their children. The program has worked with 150 young women so far — many of them referred from state agencies like the Department of Children and Families — and just graduated its first cohort of 22 participants. The organization was thrilled when, in January of this year, it received a $2 million, three-year grant from the federal Department of Justice for its work in Hartford and Springfield. The funding would have implemented a community-needs assessment and evaluation, and allowed Roca to extend its work, taking more at-risk women off the waitlist for services. But on April 22, the organization received a letter rescinding the grant — along with another $4 million for its work in Baltimore and Massachusetts. It was just one of hundreds of violence intervention, victim services and youth and criminal justice organizations around the country that saw their funding cut off. Roca has filed an appeal with the DOJ, but has no idea how that process will work, or how long it may take to be considered.

“We don’t feel as though we’re entitled to any public or private support. We are happy to be subject to merit-based reviews,” said Dwight Robson, Roca’s executive vice president of operations. “We think … that we’re well aligned in terms of what we’re doing with what the Department of Justice says they want to achieve.” Roca overall has had to eliminate 50 positions, including 25 layoffs, although none of those will hit in Hartford. It’s a familiar story for many nonprofits: Earlier this year, a Trump administration executive order abruptly cut off numerous federal grants. Funding was only reinstated after a court issued a temporary restraining order. But the restoration — like the cuts — has been a patchwork, and Roca is not alone in being left stranded.

• Several million dollars slated for Connecticut from the Environmental Protection Agency’s Thriving Communities program, which supports nonprofits that address environmental and public health issues in underserved communities, was rescinded in May. Nonprofits, including the Connecticut Roundtable on Climate and Jobs, had been working in anticipation of the grant since September.
• Two food-assistance programs through the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Federal Emergency Management Agency were cut, leaving food pantries scrambling.
• Agencies are still waiting on Housing and Urban Development funds — for homeless response and permanent supportive housing — that were allocated in fiscal year 2024 during the Biden administration.
• The abrupt closure of the regional Head Start office in Boston meant new, five-year grants in Connecticut were delayed until a day before programs were due to restart.
• In March, the state legislature had to pass a bill providing emergency funding for several high-profile nonprofits, like immigration services provider IRIS and Planned Parenthood, that had been targeted for federal cuts.

And, even for those who saw funding temporarily restored or backstopped, the future remains uncertain, with Republicans planning to codify many of the attempted executive order cuts via the federal budget process. Medicaid cuts are likely to significantly distress entities like federally qualified health centers.

“For those organizations, the unknown certainly has created operational instability,” said Thea Montañez, a senior adviser to Gov. Ned Lamont who is charged with developing public-private partnerships, including those with nonprofits. “It’s really challenging for them to develop budgets based on what they don’t know, and what that could potentially mean with regard to staffing and services.”

Planning for the unknown

The state has launched a tool for nonprofits to report federal funding cuts so that it could track the impact across Connecticut. But Montañez says it hasn’t been universally used, and it’s difficult to build a complete picture of what the federal changes have meant. Meanwhile, she sees nonprofits doing a lot of planning for the unknown. Some are considering steps like merging or partnering with similar agencies. Others are attempting to diversify their revenue streams to become less dependent on government dollars. “I’ve been involved in a lot of conversations about how do we work together more effectively with our contracted providers, and are there different ways we can be working together that ensures at least we are maximizing the funding that we currently do have access to?” she said. That raises another huge headache for the state. Some of its core services are contracted out to nonprofits, many of which rely either on direct federal grants, or pass-through dollars that the state administers. Natalie Wagner, the governor’s deputy chief of staff, is leading the state’s response to federal policy changes, reviewing each funding cut, or new set of rules as they’re issued. “It’s really a case-by-case analysis in every circumstance, which is exhausting for everybody involved,” she said. Wagner says the biggest impacts so far to the state have been in public health and education programs, both of which involve nonprofit partners. “Often we will have to put a pause, a stop work order on any contractors that are funded through those funding sources,” she said. “We don’t typically cancel because of the uncertainty — we want to be able to get things going again if funds are reinstated.” But, even when funds are restored, she said, the impacts are often great. “Because there was a period where the funding was not flowing, some of those entities had to let people go,” she said. “Some of those people have gone off and found other jobs for sure. So, the uncertainty in and of itself provides a great deal of disruption.” The uncertainty will likely continue through the summer as the federal budget reconciliation process moves forward. The Trump administration’s budget zeros out funding for the Community Services Block Grant and the fuel assistance program LIHEAP, both key anti-poverty programs in Connecticut. LIHEAP staff at the Department of Health and Human Services have been laid off. Those dollars are administered by a system of nine nonprofits across the state. Emma King is executive director of the Access Community Action Agency, which serves Tolland and Windham counties. Ordinarily she would be starting to hire staff for the LIHEAP application season. “So, we’re getting ready to administer a program that currently is zeroed out and has no staff at the federal level,” she said. “No matter what happens, the nonprofit network in Connecticut will be there. We’re gonna do the best we can — and then you try not to panic in the middle of the night.”

Shifting priorities

The uncertainty for nonprofits extends to other organizations that support them. The Hartford Foundation for Public Giving is currently going through its normal planning process to set priorities for 2026, but is also preparing for what may be a major shift. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the foundation made its grantmaking process more flexible, accessible and faster in order to respond to the greatest needs, and it says it’s ready to do the same now as nonprofits are impacted by federal grant cuts and greater demand for their services. “We also go beyond the grant, with capacity-building resources to help nonprofits work nimbly and strategically to assess funding risks and develop contingency plans,” said Elysa Gordon, the Hartford Foundation’s vice president of community impact.

Karla Fortunato, president of the Connecticut Council for Philanthropy, says her members are seeing three or four times as many grant applications as they usually receive. She also sees the analogy to the pandemic era. “At the beginning of the pandemic, people first just held back to think, okay, let’s look at the landscape and see what’s happening,” Fortunato said. “Then they pushed money out for the things that looked the most dire, and that was food, direct cash to help people who might have lost their jobs, housing.” She said that meant other priorities around less basic needs had to be put on hold for a while. She expects this new era of government-imposed scarcity to be similar. But she warns that philanthropists don’t necessarily see their role as long-term providers of basic government services. “Many of them are offering extra support to nonprofits through training, technical assistance, planning, maybe small grants to help nonprofits prepare,” she said. “But I don’t think anybody believes they’ll be able to backstop more than a few organizations.” State lawmakers have said they expect to hold a special session later this year to remake the budget in light of federal cuts, particularly those threatened to Medicaid, which may throw as many as 80,000 people off health coverage in Connecticut, and put the budget out of balance.

“If the federal government enacts a budget that cuts funding for programs, those programs remain underfunded, and it will be left to the states to make up any difference,” said Gian-Carl Casa, president and CEO of the CT Nonprofit Alliance, an industry advocacy group. He’s been fighting for years for nonprofits that provide social services for the state of Connecticut to get better reimbursement. State residents who have government assistance withdrawn — be it Medicaid, food stamps, home heating assistance or any other program — will likely look to nonprofits for help to survive. “Nonprofits have been holding their budgets together with tape and string for the last 15 years — maybe 20,” Casa said. “So, they’re used to doing more with less. What they’ve had to do the last couple of years though, is do less with less. And the people who bear the brunt of it are the people who depend on nonprofits for services.”