Foundations likely to see increased requests from New Mexico nonprofits after federal cuts

Yahoo

08-06-2025

Twenty-six trucks were set to deliver groceries to The Food Depot between April and December.
Two weeks before the first truck was scheduled to arrive, however, staff at the Santa Fe food bank learned the goods — a mix of expensive and tough-to-source groceries like yogurt, milk, chicken and produce from a U.S. Department of Agriculture program — weren't coming after all, executive director Jill Dixon said.
The Emergency Food Assistance Program was hit in March with $500 million in cuts, the latest in a string of federal food-related policy changes.
'Food banking requires planning, so it meant that there was just a gap,' Dixon said. 'For The Food Depot, that gap translated to approximately $200,000.'
Such a loss is a common story for New Mexico nonprofits these days. A new report jointly commissioned by the Thornburg Foundation, Anchorum Health Foundation and Santa Fe Community Foundation surveyed more than 200 nonprofits across the state and found 'federal funding cuts may disproportionately affect New Mexico.'
About 37% of the state's nonprofits receive some kind of federal support, the sixth highest level in the nation, with one in five getting the majority of their funding from federal grants.
Some $1.1 billion has been awarded to those surveyed with only about half paid out so far. The other half of that money can be clawed back — and in some cases already has been terminated by the federal government.
Philanthropic funders are likely to see a surge in requests from nonprofits competing for private dollars to offset their losses, the study found, estimating foundations would have to increase their giving by 282% to replace terminated grants.
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Eloy Almoner receives groceries from The Food Depot last week. Executive director Jill Dixon said previous federal aid cuts were "small potatoes" compared to proposed changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program in President Donald Trump's "Big, Beautiful Bill," which wants to strip $267 billion in SNAP funding by 2034.
Foundations would spend down their savings in short order to fill those gaps, said Allan Oliver, president of the Thornburg Foundation.
'The need is really, really significant,' he said, noting 'not all nonprofits wish to be public about the situation with their federal funding.'
Nonprofits — which provide about 8% of the jobs in New Mexico's private-sector workforce, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics — 'are making extremely hard decisions right now,' Oliver said.
'These are agreements that the federal government made with these nonprofits — and the nonprofits are holding up their end of the deal,' he added. 'It's really up to the federal government to hold up their end of the deal.'
'Extremely hard decisions'
Programs in the state focused on food security have seen a significant toll.
The National Center for Frontier Communities, a 30-year-old nonprofit based in Silver City, hasn't been able to draw down about two-thirds of a four-year, nearly $400,000 Community Food Project grant from the Department of Agriculture since January, CEO Ben Rasmussen said.
The grant funded a project supporting the local food landscape in the small, remote towns Frontier Communities serves. Among its initiatives are the development of an agricultural training center and assistance in increasing local producers' sales to a self-sustainable level.
Rasmussen takes pride in serving communities that are often 'quite literally the last stop on the road,' he said.
The center's home base in Silver City means the southwestern corner of New Mexico often serves as a 'testing ground' for new initiatives that could have a nationwide impact on remote communities — many of them Indigenous and agricultural, with low-income populations.
'We are still in compliance with the grant, and we are still moving forward,' Rasmussen said of the federal funding. But, he added, 'What's at risk is this momentum. ... It really forces you to think about what's important to you and your organization.'
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Volunteers load groceries into a waiting car during a food distribution effort at The Food Depot last week. Executive director Jill Dixon says federal cuts to food stamps will create an untenable demand at The Food Depot and other food banks. 'We are not built to be first line for food-insecure families,' she said.
'The writing on the wall'
Ladona Clayton's organization hasn't yet experienced any direct federal funding cuts, but she fears revenue might dry up — and with it, Eastern New Mexico communities.
Clayton is executive director of the Ogallala Land & Water Conservancy, a nonprofit working to ensure water security for Clovis, the Cannon Air Force Base and parts of Curry County by compensating landowners for retiring their irrigation wells and putting conservation easements into place to keep water underground.
The stakes couldn't be higher, Clayton said: 'If we don't save, preserve, store as much groundwater as we possibly can, we don't survive.'
But it takes federal dollars to make that work happen.
'We can see the writing on the wall,' she said, referring to the potential for federal funding cuts.
The Ogallala Land & Water Conservancy is primarily funded by the U.S. Department of Defense's Readiness and Environmental Protection Integration Program — thanks to the Air Force base — and the Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service, Clayton said.
She's been warned to expect steep competition for the next round of Readiness and Environmental Protection Integration Program dollars.
About a year ago, the conservancy contracted with a consulting firm to search for other federal grant options. In the months since, Clayton said, 'Every one of those doors closed on us.'
She's also applied for and received approval for seven conservation easements through the Natural Resources Conservation Service. Three have already been funded; money for two more is set to come through. But two remain unfunded.
'That is where we find ourselves, but we're working aggressively to do what we can. If the funding's not out there ... I think my greatest concern is everyone's now turning to foundations,' Clayton said.
'If we're all moving in that direction ... competition's just going to amp up,' she added.
Fight for private funding
Competition has amped up.
Nonprofits are feeling that, said Leah Ricci, interim executive director of the Santa Fe-based Quivira Coalition, an organization focused on implementing holistic farming methods known as regenerative agriculture. The sustainable practice aims to improve land and ecosystems through biodiversity.
The Department of Agriculture in April canceled the group's Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities program — an initiative Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins criticized as an effort to 'advance the green new scam.' At the time, the Quivira Coalition was about a year into a five-year, $3.9 million grant, Ricci said.
The organization had planned to use the money to help livestock producers transform waste products, like woody debris or carcasses, into soil amendments, such as compost or biochar.
With the Climate-Smart Commodities funding now gone, Ricci said the Quivira Coalition has pared down its program. It continues to train the 13 producers already recruited.
Nevertheless, the coalition still relies heavily on federal funding, with 65% of its 2025 budget coming from five big federal grants, four of which remain in place.
'We are fortunate, even with 65% of our income coming from federal grants, to have fairly diverse income from foundation grants and from donors,' Ricci said.
'We're being really careful and thoughtful about how we use those general operating support dollars so that we have the opportunity to pivot if needed,' she said.
Going forward, though, foundation grants may become harder to get.
Every grant program the Quivira Coalition has applied for this year has seen an overwhelming number of applications, Ricci said.
The local foundations' new report includes a lengthy list of recommendations for private funders as they prepare for the surge in requests, noting philanthropy 'can and should step in' to support nonprofits.
'They want to be as helpful as possible,' Ricci said of philanthropic funders. 'They also have a limited amount of money, and they're having to make tough decisions about who to award their grant funds to.'
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A line of cars wait for food from The Food Depot last week. The Congressional Budget office estimates more than 4 million Americans would lose SNAP benefits entirely as a result of proposed cuts.
Cuts so far: 'Small potatoes'
From Dixon's perspective at The Food Depot, there's more to worry about.
She described the losses of federal assistance the food bank has already weathered as 'small potatoes' in comparison to proposed congressional cuts to critical food aid known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly called food stamps.
'The proposed cuts to SNAP [are] really what we're focused on now,' Dixon said.
President Donald Trump's 'Big, Beautiful Bill' of spending priorities is expected to strip $267 billion in SNAP funding by 2034, according to analysis by the Congressional Budget Office. The bill has already passed the U.S. House and is now being considered in the Senate; Trump wants the bill on his desk by July 4.
The Congressional Budget office estimates more than 4 million Americans would lose SNAP benefits entirely as a result of the cuts, while monthly benefits would be reduced by about $15 by 2034 for all remaining participants.
Food stamps are meant to be the 'first and best line of defense' against hunger, Dixon said, while food banks work to fill the gap when SNAP benefits run out. For every meal a food bank provides, SNAP provides nine, according to the nationwide hunger relief organization Feeding America.
Slashing SNAP will likely result in untenable demand for The Food Depot and other food banks, Dixon said.
'We are not built to be first line for food-insecure families,' she said, 'and the proposed cut in the bill as it stands today is the largest and deepest cut to the SNAP program in its history.'