Life-Saving Domestic Violence Nonprofits Rocked by Trump’s Funding Freeze

The Trump administration’s push to align federal spending to the president’s agenda — which last week came with the striking freeze of grants and loans to a broad swath of the nation’s nonprofits — has sent shockwaves through the network of organizations that provide services to victims of gender-based and domestic violence.

The leaders of close to a dozen nonprofits who spoke to The 19th say they are worried that they will get caught up in President Donald Trump’s attempt to block federal funds from going to any group that supports diversity and inclusion; recognizes transgender and nonbinary people; or supports undocumented immigrants. Last week’s federal spending freeze, which left some of these organizations in the lurch as they tried to provide essential services to clients, drove home that the administration could, at any moment, pull the rug out from under them.

While a court order is compelling the administration to restore the flow of funds, many organizations are bracing for impact to the federal programs that fund their work, some of which are marked for review by the administration. Many have also begun to proactively edit their websites and public-facing materials, with one national group deleting a page of resources for LGBTQ+ domestic violence victims in hopes of safeguarding its funding. A third of the websites belonging to state coalitions of domestic violence nonprofits went offline last week; one director told The 19th her organization had done so to review its language following the funding freeze.

“Every organization that had funding from the federal agencies that had been listed — any federal government agency that’s funding domestic violence services — definitely felt like we were put on alert that our funding was in jeopardy,” said Dawn Dalton, the executive director for the D.C. Coalition Against Domestic Violence.

In the aftermath of the federal funding freeze, White House officials made clear that they are continuing to review federal spending on activities that go against executive orders seeking to end “radical and wasteful government DEI programs” and “gender ideology extremism.”

Conservatives’ nationwide assault on diversity, equity and inclusion policies, as well as LGBTQ+ identity, remains vaguely defined and the source of internal tension. As a result, what kinds of language or activities may defy the executive order remains hard to pin down. Does the mere focus on women or a specific cultural group count as DEI?

The administration’s ongoing review includes several grant programs that benefit groups working on domestic violence and gender-based violence, according to a memo from the Office of Management and Budget of about 2,600 programs, which was reported by the New York Times.

Listed are grants from the Justice Department’s Office on Violence Against Women, including one grant program focused on underserved populations like LGBTQ+ people and people with disabilities, two programs focused on nonprofits that serve specific cultural groups, and a grant program for tribal governments working to combat violence against women. The review also includes several programs from the Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Family Violence Prevention umbrella.

The review requires agencies to answer a series of questions about each grant program, including whether grants are being used to support “removable or illegal aliens or immigrants” and whether they are “implicated” in the executive order to end all “illegal” diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility programs; programs that “promote gender ideology”; and programs “promote or support in any way abortion.”

The DOJ grants under review amount to $480 million, and while the HHS programs amount to $261 million. Domestic violence victim support and prevention groups can receive money from other funding streams, such as the Department of Housing and Urban Development, that may also be under review. Neither the DOJ nor HHS returned requests for comment.

“The purpose of our organizations is to help survivors escape violence, which is a human right, and the idea of denying them assistance when it’s supported by our community, when it’s supported by our society, is really heartbreaking,” said Jinny Suh, executive director of Awaaz San Antonio, a nonprofit combatting family violence in the South Asian community. “For a government that prides itself on justice and pursuing consequences for criminal activity, the idea that we may create a situation inadvertently where we’re allowing violence to continue without consequences is really just inexcusable.”

The freeze itself acutely affected gender-based violence nonprofits, which often are heavily dependent on federal funding. Staff across the country felt the language of the executive orders directly targeted their work, especially grants issued to groups as a part of initiatives to address domestic violence in culturally specific populations.

Several nonprofits were unable to submit requests for reimbursements or draw down funds through the federal portal for a day. Since the temporary freeze, many organizations remain worried that they won’t be reimbursed for money they’ve spent. They’re also unsure whether approved funds can be used for their budgeted purpose if they could be seen to conflict with recent executive orders.

“We didn’t know if we could continue projects or activities that we were doing. Could we invoice? Could we bill?” said Mariya Taher, the co-founder and executive director of Sahiyo, a national nonprofit dedicated to fighting female genital mutilation and cutting (FGM/C). Much of Sahiyo’s work is federally funded; it is a subgrantee of a $13.2 million dollar HHS grant to support Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander survivors of gender-based violence that expires in the fall. Last year Sahiyo and its partners were selected for a $300,000 grant from the Office on Violence Against Women to create and provide trainings about the practice of FGM/C, which is considered a human rights violation.

Without those funds — reimbursements for what they’ve spent, and outstanding grant money they haven’t drawn down — Taher said, programs ranging from educating health care providers about FGM/C to hosting survivor support groups could be at risk. Her contact at the Office on Violence Against Women didn’t have any information about how Sahiyo’s grant could be affected.

Suh’s job exists only because of an HHS grant. She’s the first paid employee at Awaaz San Antonio. Suh’s grant expires in September, and she is worried that any delays from the administration could cost her organization the rest of the grant.

“What I’m trying to do is make sure I follow the rules of the grant, but also try to capture as much of the grant as possible,” Suh said. “I don’t know how much time I have, so I’m trying to stick within the guidelines of the budget that we have in place, following the rules, making sure everything is documented, but also [move] as quickly as possible.”

After joining Awaaz as executive director, Suh applied and was selected for a $400,000 grant from the Office on Violence Against Women targeted at culturally specific services. Organizations rooted in specific communities are often better equipped to intervene against social norms around violence, offer services in myriad languages, and provide tangible resources like food and shelter that align with religious or cultural practices. The reception was widely celebrated, prompting local news coverage. The media attention led to more calls to Awaaz’s helpline and client requests for assistance.

But the final budget for the grant hasn’t been approved, and following the funding freeze Suh is worried about receiving any of the money at all. “We were literally in the middle of an upward trajectory in terms of the amount of support we were giving to the community and to our survivors,” she said. “And so to have this freeze, this uncertainty about the future of our grants, it’s really put a big chill on our activities.”

Some nonprofits are also worried about getting reimbursements for money already spent.

“For the remainder of this fiscal year, we have $1.94 million in federal reimbursements pending, and without these funds, our ability to provide emergency housing, counseling and survivor advocacy is at significant risk,” Kavita Mehra, executive director of Sakhi for South Asian Survivors, a gender justice nonprofit that operates a national multilanguage helpline, wrote over email.

Many groups anticipated cuts after Trump took office, but there isn’t enough support to replace federal dollars right now.

Private philanthropy has chronically underfunded women and girls, Mehra said in her statement. The 1994 passage of the Violence Against Women Act opened up a resource for domestic violence organizations, creating a reliance on federal funds. Research from the Equitable Giving Lab has consistently found that less than two percent of charitable giving in the United States is directed toward women and girls. Mehra has also written about the prejudices nonprofits focused on gender-based violence face in funding spaces, such as the idea that they have limited impact over time.

Fear that their access to federal funds will be restricted has prompted some groups to proactively edit their online presence to try to align with the administration’s views on diversity, equity and inclusion work, as well as LGBTQ+ people.

The Hotline, a national phone line and chat service for people experiencing domestic violence, in recent days removed a webpage titled, “Abuse in LGBTQ+ Communities.” The webpage previously stated that while LGBTQ+ people experience abuse at the same rates and in similar ways as heretosexual people, they may face specific abuse and barriers to accessing support based on prejudice against their gender expression or sexuality. It goes on to describe specific forms of abuse. Resources for LGBTQ+ people from Love is Respect, a project of The Hotline focused on intimate-partner violence among young people, are missing from the site.

The Hotline itself is still functioning and continues to serve anyone in the United States through phone, text or online chat.

Crystal Justice, the chief external affairs officer at The Hotline, said the organization is reviewing the content of its website “in anticipation of what we might receive from HHS.”

“We are trying to anticipate what may be the guidance that we receive, and as a result, we’re analyzing the content on our websites,” Justice said. “In some cases, it sounds like the team may be making some changes to that content, or where the content lives on our websites.”

Also last week, the websites of about two dozen organizations working on domestic violence prevention and support were stripped to basic hotline information or completely deactivated. Several sites had notes that they were down for scheduled maintenance. It’s not clear what drove every individual organization to take such action, but internet archive records show these changes followed the federal funding freeze.

Most groups did not reply to requests for comment on changes to their websites or declined to speak on the record. The outages included the webpages of at least 16 state-based domestic violence coalitions, which provide training and technical guidance to local nonprofit service providers. Online resources are important educational tools, and their loss could make it more difficult for people experiencing abuse to find help.

Dalton, the executive director for the D.C. Coalition Against Domestic Violence (DCCADV), confirmed that their own site is down for review following the federal funding freeze.

She added that diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging are pillars of social services work. Dalton said that complying with the administration’s anti-DEI efforts may directly conflict with anti-discrimination requirements in the Violence Against Women Act. Dalton said the group will edit that language to make sure “survivors do not feel stigmatized to be able to come forward and access services” while also communicating that in a way that is “in line with some new expectations that were coming down from our federal grant funders.”

Dalton said the review of the organization’s website wasn’t part of a specific directive from the government or the National Network To End Domestic Violence, the national umbrella group for state networks, whose website says its “undergoing routine maintenance.” She said the leaders of every state-based network are in communication about the evolving situation, but “every organization is making their own determinations about what feels right in terms of the actions that they’re taking.”

Dalton said she expects the impact of the website’s review will be minimal in comparison to what would happen if their funding streams dry up. “I think we have reason to be concerned about what this is going to look like going forward,” Dalton said.

In the meantime, if someone is looking for domestic violence resources in D.C., the DCCADV website will redirect them to the local area hotline or to the group’s landline.

“The way I described it in a conversation earlier today is that it’s sort of like going to an analog system at the moment,” Dalton said. The group is mostly relying on referrals within the community to point people to the right resources. Their phone number is also posted on the website’s mostly empty landing page. “If somebody called our office, you know, we would just say, here’s the phone number for so on and so forth.”

It’s not yet clear what the implications will be for LGBTQ+ victims of domestic violence, immigrants or other groups that may go without specific resources.

Amanda Katz, the executive director of JCADA, an intimate partner violence services group that receives federal funding for its work with the D.C. Jewish community, said she is awaiting more news about the fate of her grant program, called “Underserved Populations.” Ending the program would “take away our capacity to reach the most marginalized people,” Katz said.

Still, JCADA’s website will remain up and running, including its promise to serve victims and survivors regardless of their identity, including “gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, or immigration status.” Federal funding amounts to $1.7 million of JCADA’s $2.1 million annual budget.

“I think that we need to stay where we are. We’re promoting the truth,” Katz said, adding that they are simply letting people know the organization is a safe place to come. “I would need a direct order from a grantor.”