According to The Chronicle of Philanthropy, on Jan. 27 the Trump administration ordered a freeze on federal grants and contracts awarded to many nonprofit organizations. In response, several organizations, including the National Council of Nonprofits, have filed lawsuits in an attempt to delay the order. The efforts have yet to reverse a series of policies restricting federal aid to nonprofits, which have already affected the budgets of nonprofits across the U.S.

Seniors Nate Moser, Charlotte Ducanois and Sprite Fravel lead the CommuniCare Club at Lincoln, a club that partners with the Schnitzer Cares Foundation to provide grants to nonprofits in Oregon. CommuniCare raises money year-long to support the safety and well-being of thousands of underprivileged people. Schnitzer Cares then matches the funds CommuniCare raises.

Ducanois said the cuts would likely affect Raphael House, an organization to which CommuniCare has issued grants in years past and that focuses on removing people from abusive situations and providing them with basic necessities.

“ They get around 45% of their funding from federal grants,” said Ducanois. “They do important work, especially in Portland, because we see so much houselessness. They provide people with places to stay. I think not getting as much federal money as they do would really affect a lot of people, especially in a city like Portland.”

Moser believes budget cuts have larger implications for nonprofit organizations.

“I feel like we’re going to see a disappearance in a lot of smaller organizations that might have a greater impact than we might realize right now. They’ll have to change the way they go after income because they’ll have to shift more towards reaching out to local communities like us or other schools [that have] the Schnitzer Cares clubs,” said Moser.

Ducanois explains the effect of the cuts on the CommuniCare club at Lincoln.

“ It’s going to be a thing that we take into consideration when we’re deciding who to give the grants to because we have information on where they get their funding from,” said Ducanois.

Ducanois says these decisions depend on organizations’ financial stability without federal funding.

“If there’s one organization that’s really aligned with our mission statement, but isn’t going to be that affected by the federal government funding, and another that’s slightly less [aligned], and will be very affected and might not be able to operate with the federal budget cuts, we’re probably going to go more towards the way of [helping] the one that’s going to be more affected,” said Ducanois.

With many organizations losing a primary source of income, CommuniCare clubs, like Lincoln’s, can have a valuable role in helping to keep nonprofits in service. Moser outlines how others can help struggling nonprofits.

“ A lot of it is raising awareness. On our level as students, we don’t have as much of an ability to go and stop the government cuts, but we definitely have an ability to spread information about how these are going to affect our community, the impacts we’ll see from this [and] where we’ll start seeing it,” said Moser. “Our participation with the community is needed to grow a lot more than it did in the past.”