By Mary Beth Collins, J.D., M.A., Executive Director of the UW-Madison Center for Community and Nonprofit Studies, Professor Mark Sidel of the UW-Madison Law School, and Dr. Vincenzo Bollettino of the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative.
On March 10, the UW-Madison Center for Nonprofit and Community Studies (the “CommNS”) held a virtual event on Nonprofits and Philanthropy Working Abroad in 2025: Navigating Recent Developments in Government Policy and Regulation.
Professor Mark Sidel of the UW Law School and Dr. Vincenzo Bollettino of the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative provided introductory remarks about these issues, and then answered questions from participants. Mary Beth Collins of the CommNS then shared observations gathered from various partners in the field.
Professor Sidel discussed the new US administration’s actions to restrict US funding to organizations working outside the United States.
He discussed three key issues. The first was the scope and speed of the new administration’s moves, including its initiatives to suspend most US government foreign assistance; to substantially end the work of the US Agency for International Development (USAID); to dismantle a range of US government agencies; and other moves, as well as the legal resistance those moves have sparked in the United States.
Professor Sidel also discussed the impacts of those moves on recipients of aid and nonprofit organizations in the United States and abroad, including widespread hunger, shortage of medicines and other impacts, furloughs, and shrinking of organizations. He mentioned a wide range of legal and policy threats to US and overseas nonprofits.
Finally, Professor Sidel discussed the impacts of these US government moves on private donors and others that support activity abroad, mentioning the intense demands on the US philanthropic sector in the wake of the administration’s actions, as well as the threats that some US private foundations are likely to find themselves under.
Dr. Bollettino then shared his observations from the field of humanitarian aid, noting the following baseline data points:
- There are approximately 307 million people in need of humanitarian aid globally
- $44.7 billion estimated to be needed to meet the needs of 185 million people (a little more than half of the overall need)
- U.S. had provided roughly 43% of the overall international humanitarian and development budget
- Most USAID programs had been eliminated in recent weeks, with remaining programs placed under the U.S. State Department
Dr. Bollettino pointed out that current administration policy changes had the practical effects of creating sharp declines in lifesaving humanitarian aid and the undermining of famine and disease early warning systems, measures that are already and will continue to contribute to needless death. Dr. Bollettino also noted the impact of widespread terminations of experienced aid workers as a result of direct U.S. government terminations or loss of aid funding to NGOs, resulting in a gutting of knowledge, expertise, and capacity in aid networks and systems; this decline in capacity is particularly concerning when current and ongoing global crises including climate change and conflict will continue to drive up humanitarian needs.
Dr. Bollettino provided additional background on the global humanitarian and civil society landscape. The international aid system has grown, diversified and improved aid delivery through a series of reforms most notably in 2005, 2010, and 2016, resulting in more effective, professional, and evidence-driven practices. Nonetheless, further steps were still needed to position the aid system to meet rising humanitarian needs, including: further localization of resources and implementation, improved coordination among aid agencies, and greater accountability to and engagement with the people the aid system was serving. While some of these important aims for foreign aid improvements had been recognized for some time and some steps had been taken toward them, progress was limited, with only minimal shifts of resources from larger organizations toward local organizations, for example. With federal foreign aid disruption and cuts underway in 2025, any such proposed shifts in the aid landscape may be significantly disrupted or occur in part out of necessity, with dramatically fewer resources to work with.
Mary Beth Collins of the CommNS then shared insights gathered, through an informal survey and timely conversations, from global partners of the CommNS. CommNS partners from several continents and in various professional roles (academics, foreign aid professionals, local partners collaborating with or observing foreign aid organizations) indicated that they had already observed or experienced dramatic programmatic impacts from foreign aid disruption, including mass layoffs and shut-downs of organizations across regions and sectors, cessation of in-progress health programming (e.g. immediate closure of clinics providing HIV/AIDS medication in South Africa), and existential threats to agricultural and health delivery systems in the global south. Many colleagues expressed dismay with impacts to the relationship between the United States and the global community, citing threats to soft diplomacy and goodwill, and noting the way that other global actors such as Europe and China would be relied upon to fill gaps.
In addition to urgent concerns with program delivery and international relationships, many colleagues reflected on the predicament of the members of the workforce associated with foreign aid, sharing stories of aid workers with posts abroad being terminated and now facing uncertainty about what they would do or where they and their families would live. Colleagues expressed concern about where U.S. aid workers and local in-country nongovernmental organization professionals would be able to continue to find employment and continue to apply their professional expertise in a translatable way, considering the anticipated shrinking of the sector as previously structured. Colleagues also expressed concern about the way that research and knowledge-building about foreign aid was likely to be seriously threatened by dramatic disruption to networks and reduction of the sector, and the way that a ripple of fear about terminology and programming areas targeted by the administration had impacted the organizations left standing. Most colleagues and organizations doing work in the sector had experienced a significant outlay of time and attention to navigate an evolving and continuing series of executive orders and actions, followed at times by changes or updated guidance based on the administration’s own pivots or litigation. These efforts included internal analysis of guidance and strategy; administrative, financial, and human resource efforts in response to funding disruptions and potential loss of committed funds; exploring mergers and restructuring; communicating with grant officers and answering grant-related questionnaires related to the administration’s shifts in policy; reviewing language and aims in project content and materials; continuing to monitor a fluid and unpredictable landscape of changing guidance and adjust accordingly.
Some colleagues, including a participant in the webinar session, indicated that communities and individuals in some countries were experiencing a rude awakening to the level of reliance their own governments had upon U.S. aid for what were presumed by the public to be in-country national government functions. Many colleagues noted a growing recognition that local efforts on the ground would need to find new and innovative ways to continue to serve their communities, including identifying limited in-country resources, finding new philanthropic sources and revenue-generating activities, and building more capacity within community-based organizations. Many respondents highlighted the need for global solidarity among organizations supporting communities in these uncertain times.