Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to change oversight of how grants are awarded
On May 29th the OMB proposed new revisions to the Uniform Guidance of how federal grants will be reviewed, awarded, and administered. These changes would essentially give politically appointed officials the final say in who gets funded and who does not.
Excerpt from the statement released by The Nonprofit Alliance "That discretion could allow an agency to impose requirements that have nothing to do with program performance, emphasizing instead organizational values, policy positions, or political alignment. And the targeting of terms included in grant submissions, such as DEI or gender, is expected to unfairly sideline applications. It could allow funding decisions to be made on ideological grounds rather than community need or congressional intent. That discretion could allow an agency to impose additional certifications, restrict otherwise lawful activities, or evaluate applicants based on policy considerations unrelated to their ability to deliver effective services, emphasizing organizational values or political alignment rather than program performance and community need."
Maybe I am just not finding the conversations that are happening about this... but I have searched everywhere on reddit and have seen very little mention of this. And that scares me.
Public comment to the Federal Register is open until July 13th. It is with the greatest importance that our voices are heard. The services nonprofits provide on a local level should not be determined by national political agendas and nonprofits need to be able to make sustainable programmatic and financial decisions that withstand presidential administrations and their priorities. We deserve nonpartisan, fair, and predictable grantmaking.
Again, from the Nonprofit Alliance... "You may not receive federal grants. Your organization may be entirely privately funded. But the nonprofit sector’s credibility and our ability to serve as trusted partners to communities, to government, and to donors depends on a healthy ecosystem. When federal grantmaking becomes unpredictable or ideologically filtered, it doesn’t just harm the organizations directly affected. It erodes public trust in the sector as a whole."