FairShare / Shine United
A man picks leafy greens out of a garden.
FairShare promises to stay the course on its equity work.
Nonprofits focusing on equity work must navigate an increasingly hostile federal grant landscape as President Donald Trump continues his crusade against diversity initiatives.
“Will we be able to still write grants to USDA, but they’ll have to be focused on the parts of our work that are not equity-centered?” asks Clare Stoner Fehsenfeld, executive director of Madison-based community-supported agriculture nonprofit FairShare CSA Coalition. “Or will there be a broader issue where if your organization engages in equity work in general, that will impinge on your ability to get grants?”
Stoner Fehsenfeld learned in mid-February that the United States Department of Agriculture was terminating a $500,000 grant it had awarded FairShare in September to increase the “inclusivity and accessibility” of CSAs, which allow consumers to directly invest in farms and receive fresh produce in return.
Melissa Bailey, an administrator with the agency, wrote in a letter that the award “no longer effectuates agency priorities regarding diversity, equity and inclusion programs and activities.” Stoner Fehsenfeld says that FairShare and its grant partners are debating legal action to fight the determination.
The anti-DEI termination struck at the core of FairShare’s mission, Stoner Fehsenfeld says. She says she’s seen some nonprofits remove equity-related language from their websites and reflect on “how they’re going to be presenting themselves to the public.”
But, she says, “FairShare has chosen to just stay the course on our equity commitments and our equity work.”
That choice could make the nonprofit a target. The Trump administration has made aggressive moves to withhold federal funding from public, private and nonprofit sector organizations that promote DEI programs, though some of his directives have been blocked by federal judges.
A Maryland federal judge on Feb. 21 barred the Trump administration from enforcing provisions to withhold federal funding to DEI programs and organizations with DEI policies, noting that such actions violated the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause and violated the First Amendment guarantee of free expression.
Were the Trump administration to withhold grants to nonprofits for simply “engaging in equity work,” Stoner Fehsenfeld says, such action would “feel like a First Amendment violation.”
“It’s one thing to say, ‘Hey, we’re giving you the funding federally, and so you have to do what we’re telling you to do with it,’” she says. “It’s another thing to say, if you’re getting federal funding at all, you can’t also do this equity work with other funding in your organization.”
