Nonprofits are familiar with shifting landscapes in the philanthropy world. Politics shift, priorities change and the economy affects how individuals and corporations are able to give to the causes they care about. 

But as President Donald Trump’s second term began last year, his emphasis on cutting government spending quickly transformed the world in which nonprofits were operating. 

“The overall sense that we got was that decisions that impacted the nonprofit sector were being made very quickly, with little or no advance warning and with a lot of consequences,” said Jordan DeGree, executive director of the Iowa Nonprofit Alliance. 

Looking back at the state of nonprofits a year after the new administration took hold, uncertainty is a word that continues to be used. We spoke with three Des Moines nonprofit leaders about what it’s been like to navigate these fast-paced changes and how they continue to serve their missions. 

When nonprofits hurt, communities miss out 

Amid quick changes and even quicker fallout, Iowa nonprofits had to constantly be ready to shift their strategies to continue to serve their communities.

“You would wake up in the morning and you wouldn’t know if something major was going to happen that day that would derail your plans, threaten your organization’s existence, significantly impact the services that you provided to folks in Iowa or that would force you to lay off staff members,” DeGree said. 

DeGree said the uncertainty made it difficult for nonprofits to maximize efficiency with their resources, something he said nonprofits are expected to do. Nonprofits rely heavily on planning and strategy, and last minute changes make it difficult to to use every dollar to create the most impact. 

It’s the communities that end up losing. 

“Nonprofit organizations are community owned corporations, and in those instances, the community is the one that suffers because they’re not getting the most value out of that community owned corporation because that corporation is having to spend a lot of time, energy and resources recalibrating what it’s trying to do and how it’s trying to do it,” DeGree said. 

Government policy has had indirect effects on nonprofit functions, as well. Overall prices have increased nearly 25% since 2020, and the U.S. inflation rate has remained above the Federal Reserve’s 2% goal since March 2021. American households are continuing to see pressure on their budgets, often leading to an increased need in services from nonprofit organizations. 

“You have more people trying to make their own personal budget stretch, you have more people who are struggling or falling below federal or state poverty lines. Nonprofits that often help buoy those economic downturns are more important than ever,” DeGree said. 

DeGree said that a struggling nonprofit sector will lead to a struggling Iowa economy as a whole. 

“One in 11 Iowans is employed by a nonprofit organization,” he said. “Nonprofits annually pay just over $7 billion in employee wages, and those are dollars going directly into Iowans’ pockets so they can be circulated in the community. If the overall nonprofit sector were to end up shrinking, that’s more folks that are going to be looking for jobs. That’s less money coming into this state from federal and outside of state sources. The nonprofit sector in Iowa is such a cornerstone of our economy that any policies that limit or restrict the growth of the nonprofit sector in Iowa are going to have very real, very negative economic impacts on everyone across the state.”

Protecting grant funding 

Maria Corona, executive director of the Iowa Coalition Against Domestic Violence, said the victim services field faced uncertainty around what the flurry of executive orders in early 2025 exactly meant for their work.

“At the most simplistic thing, what does an executive order do?” Corona said. “We had to start thinking about what this actually meant. We understood that the executive orders don’t necessarily impact the work you do directly. They inform the federal government entities about how to move and what are the priorities.” 

The administration aimed to cut funding to organizations and activities it saw as promoting “illegal diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.” As funding cuts were announced, and often quickly retracted, providers both in Iowa and across the country waited to see if their services would be affected. In April 2025, the Trump administration terminated $811 million in U.S. Department of Justice grants. 

Two primary sources of victim services funding from the Department of Justice are the Office of Victims of Crime, or OVC, and the Office of Violence Against Women, also known as OVW. The OVC saw grants terminated first. ICADV believed the cuts would come for OVW next, the office from which they receive funding. 

“We believed that based on the pattern of what was happening across other departments, like the Education Department and Health and Human Services, that OVW would be next, and we knew the impact in Iowa would be devastating,” Corona said. 

As funding cuts came, it quickly became apparent that the executive orders would impede victim services providers’ ability to provide services in accordance with federal law. Executive orders inserted conditions into Notices of Funding Opportunities issued by OVC and OVW that excluded activities deemed “out-of-scope” by the administration. 

Those conditions stemmed from executive orders banning “inculcating or promoting gender ideology,” “promoting or facilitating discriminatory programs or ideology, including illegal DEI” and “activities that frame domestic violence or sexual assault as systemic social justice issues rather than criminal offenses,” among others. ICADV joined a coalition of 21 states and victim services organizations to sue the administration against imposing these restrictions.

Corona said these conditions would have made it impossible to serve victims according to the 1994 Violence Against Women Act, which authorizes the grant programs provided by the OVW. 

“The Violence Against Women Act protects us to do the work the way that we do in an inclusive way,” Corona said. “Victim advocates and experts have pushed for better statutes so we can ensure all survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault and human trafficking, regardless of their identity, can get services.” 

A federal court issued a preliminary injunction blocking the enforcement of the funding restrictions last August. Corona said they are glad to have escaped funding cuts, but the threat has increased instability within the field. 

“We were in this state of forever figuring out the news, and that was certainly very hard,” she said. “As an executive director, you’re trying to hold the staff that you have and ensure they don’t feel like they have job insecurity. People felt like, ‘My organization gets federal grants. Is my position going to be terminated in a month?’ People are leaving the field because of instability. The work is so hard and trauma is so real for our field. It didn’t help to sustain and feel like your work was respected and that you were doing all you can for survivors.”

The mission comes first

Because they are not federally funded, the Food Bank of Iowa did not directly lose funds from government cuts. But when the longest government shutdown in history began at the end of 2025, leading to a lapse in SNAP benefits, they saw an overwhelming request for community support. 

“We went from distributing 100,000 pounds of food a day out of our distribution centers to 160,000 to 170,000 pounds of food a day, literally overnight,” said Annette Hacker, chief communications and strategy officer for Food Bank of Iowa. 

Hacker said this disruption came on the heels of four years of surging need, which began in April 2022 when pandemic-era benefits ran out. Food Bank of Iowa, which distributes food to partners across 55 Iowa counties, is used to responding to community needs.

The speed of the changes brought on by the government shutdown felt unique. 

“The only way to respond to that surging and immediate need was to build capacity,” Hacker said. “And the way we did that was, in part, simply to buy more food.” 

Food Bank of Iowa also expanded their operational capabilities. They had 49,000 volunteer hours donated in 2025, which Hacker said was critical to getting more food out of the door. They expanded their parking lot so they can accommodate more volunteers and visitor groups. 

But expanding their services can only make so much of a dent in the hunger crisis in Iowa, she said.

“SNAP is the most effective hunger relief program in history,” Hacker said. “For every meal the charitable food system provides, SNAP provides nine. There is no way we can replace that.”  

Agricultural policy affects the Food Bank of Iowa’s capabilities to serve the state, as well. They receive commodity food from the United States Department of Agriculture through the Emergency Food Assistance Program. Hacker said the program is an important source of nutrition for food banks. 

“When we don’t get food from USDA, we either have to get more donated or we have to buy it,” she said. “Because more people need food, and food costs more than ever, you can see what that does to a budget.” 

More uncertainty lies ahead for the charitable food system, said Hacker. They’re unsure if SNAP benefits will become more difficult for people to qualify for. Food from the USDA is never certain. Trade, market conditions and logistics can impact what food they can bring in. 

Despite the uncertainties, Hacker said their team is prepared to pivot and address the challenges as they come. 

“It’s our donors, our volunteers, the people who work here. When we face these things, the answer is always just, we will find a way,” Hacker said. “People need to eat, and it’s our mission to provide that nutrition so that not only Iowans can thrive, but the communities where they live are stronger for it. At the end of the day, that’s our mission, and we’ve got to accomplish it no matter what obstacles are thrown our way.”