Back in May, I wrote in NPQ about how draconian federal cuts are threatening AmeriCorps—and the need for nonprofits and others to respond. Since then, AmeriCorps and its programmatic partners have been riding a roller coaster of decisions, lawsuits, motions, and emergency guidance.
There’s some good news: Judicial injunctions have at least temporarily restored much of the cut funding. But there is also a lot of less good news—namely, many victories are not necessarily permanent, meaning that AmeriCorps program directors like me are still walking on eggshells.
Here’s where things stand now.
The Good
To recap, over 40 percent of AmeriCorps grantees across the country were unceremoniously terminated on April 25. Program leads like me received emails at 7:00 pm on a Friday night saying their program needed to stop work immediately because they “no longer effectuated agency priorities.”
As a result, many programs, including some that I direct, ceased operations. We gave our members one week’s notice, laid off staff, and said goodbye to host site partners. In our case, our members who had been working with low-income high school students on post-secondary planning had to walk away from their students right at the time of the year when high school seniors were making decisions about financial aid packages and where to go to college.
What we are learning is that judges can make decisions, but those of us on the ground have to figure out how to implement them.
About a week later, 24 states and the District of Columbia sued the federal government, arguing that the terminations were illegal, as they clearly violated due process for federal grant terminations.
In normal times, organizations are supposed to get seven days’ advance notice of a pending termination. Organizations also have due process rights to challenge terminations, which were not provided.
In some states, because of the pending lawsuit, AmeriCorps programs kept operating despite the terminations. In Pennsylvania, our state commission, PennSERVE, which manages many AmeriCorps programs through a state formula allocation (similar to a block grant), told programs that they could keep serving through May 25, as they believed a one-month wind down was “reasonable and necessary.”
In early June, US District Judge Deborah L. Boardman issued a preliminary injunction, and ordered the AmeriCorps agency to reinstate the terminated grants, and allow members to return to service. However, the injunction only applied to terminated programs in the states that sued.
But a separate lawsuit filed by the National College Attainment Network and other plaintiffs also just won an injunction. That injunction, issued by US District Judge Matthew Maddox, applies to members of the 14 nonprofits that filed the suit. Specifically, according to Maryland Matters, this includes the “return of roughly $400 million in funding to 14 nonprofits that had grants to do AmeriCorps work, the reinstatement of hundreds of AmeriCorps Employees Union Local 2027 members who were put on administrative leave on April 15 and subsequently laid off, and the return of three AmeriCorps members who lost their positions as a result of the cuts.”
The Bad
While the preliminary injunctions are welcome news, the practicality of actually reinstating programming is questionable for some of us. What we are learning is that judges can make decisions, but those of us on the ground have to figure out how to implement them.
In our case, most of our members had already been out of service for one month when the injunction was announced. Several had found other positions. And it was also only a week before the school year ended. Would it even make sense to put members back in schools for one week? And that assumes that everyone could just pivot and return to service on Monday after a judicial decision issued a Friday.
The other sticking point is the financial risk. On the federal side, AmeriCorps has 60 days to challenge the injunction—so the deadline is early August in the case of the June injunction. If they do so, and win, and the injunction is overturned, it’s possible for the budgetary clock to be reset to April 25.
This means that any federal dollars that I as a center director spend now restoring programming might eventually have to be returned.
The Ugly
Another challenge involves the mechanics of reinstating previously terminated members. AmeriCorps uses an online member management system called eGrants to enroll members and then eventually exit them. The system does not have an “undo” button for a member termination.
Organizations, especially smaller grassroots organizations, need money in hand, not just promises on paper.
We were awaiting guidance from AmeriCorps about how to handle these reinstatements. On June 27 AmeriCorps issued a memo generously allowing for us to provide back pay to members and to credit them for time they would have served regardless of whether they actually return to service, but then our state commission told us to wait another week until July 9 before doing anything.
As of this writing (July 16), all my members have been reinstated and given back pay through their original intended end date or through August 1, whichever date is earlier. However, I have heard from other program directors that not all of their members were reinstated and there appears to be no guidance as to why this is the case.
The Wheels Keep on Turning
In another bizarre twist of fate, while all of this was going on, we learned from our state commission on July 10 that our program was re-funded for 2025–2026. Yes, the program that was unceremoniously terminated in April, was given the green light to start again in August.
This is fabulous news, but it also makes the April termination even more galling. Think of all of the lost momentum, the mental energy dealing with this manufactured crisis, the lost trust with our partners, not to mention the eventual payments to people who didn’t actually serve. It’s the height of inefficiency, to say the least.
From what I can tell, we were supported again for two reasons: We’re a subgrantee of our state commission, and we lucked out by being in the second year of what is normally a three-year grant cycle.
Other AmeriCorps programs are funded directly by the federal agency in what’s called a competitive process. It seems that many of the organizations that were funded federally (that is, not through their state commissions) and also were at the end of their three-year cycles were not re-funded.
In my hometown of Philadelphia, longtime successful programs like PowerCorps, and new and equally successful programs like Joyful Readers, both lost their federal funding for these reasons and have had to rely on other sources to sustain themselves.
It also seems that organizations that were awarded funds are still not able to access those funds—a rehash of the situation in January where all federal funds were frozen, then reinstated on paper but not in practice.
Organizations, especially smaller grassroots organizations, need money in hand, not just promises on paper. This uncertainty has led some organizations to close their doors, even if their funding was not terminated. In Philadelphia, for instance, we’re mourning the loss of College Possible, among others. It has also led some staff to switch to other positions with more job security.
We lost our amazing VISTA operations coordinator—and her institutional knowledge—simply because the prospect of getting “DOGE’d” in the future set her on the path to look for other jobs.
The Uncertain Future of AmeriCorps
Separate from all of this, is the question of the AmeriCorps agency and its staffing.
My organization also has a VISTA grant (a different branch of AmeriCorps) that was never cut. We kept the lights on and moved forward. We have recruited 28 new people who were expecting to start a year of service in local nonprofits and schools starting on August 11, some of whom are currently in the process of moving to Philadelphia for this opportunity.
Recently, however, we learned that their start date will now have to be August 25—two weeks later—due to issues with onboarding and paperwork that’s done by the federal agency.
Advocacy remains as critical as ever. Earlier this year, 99,000 people sent emails to Congress….Now the advocacy coalition Voices for National Service is asking for more.
Unlike regular AmeriCorps members, VISTAs have to take an oath of service administered by federal AmeriCorps staff on their first day during a virtual member orientation (VMO). They also get enrolled in eGrants and have their paperwork processed by AmeriCorps staff, not by our organization.
For reasons unknown, the VMO for August 11 was canceled, as was a Spanish-language VMO scheduled for August 18 (which typically applies to grantees in Puerto Rico).
Two weeks may not seem like a big deal, but at our center it entirely disrupts a full week of orientation, meaning that room reservations must be changed, and speakers rebooked, while all incoming members have to wait two more weeks before getting put on payroll.
It’s a bit like planning a wedding only to find out one month before the big day that the officiant needs to reschedule and you have to push it back two weeks. Doable, but a big pain.
In general, the reduced staff leaves everyone in a weird sort of limbo. In normal times, there would be a program office or portfolio manager in Washington, DC, to check with on details. But too few people are there to answer questions or return emails. Our program officer was one of the 85 percent of staff members let go in mid-April.
We are told to send emails to a generic inbox, but very few of them get answered. From what we can tell, AmeriCorps staff are triaging responses (which makes sense) meaning that emails about issues that need to be resolved in the next one to two weeks are getting answered, and anything else isn’t.
Finally, we need an FY 2026 budget that includes AmeriCorps funding at adequately high levels. Trump has proposed to zero out the agency entirely, which makes no sense. Every dollar invested in AmeriCorps leverages $17 more in returns to society, through programs supporting workforce development, college completion, disaster response, and more.
Advocacy remains as critical as ever. Earlier this year, 99,000 people sent emails to Congress. That had an impact. Now the advocacy coalition Voices for National Service is asking for more.
Nonprofits and movement groups that benefit from AmeriCorps need to reach out and urge their congresspeople to fund the national service program as if it matters to their communities. Because it does.
