For three Cambridge nonprofits, recent cuts to federal funding means the loss of invaluable team members and community resources. As the Donald Trump administration slashes grant funding to AmeriCorps, affiliated programs such as the environmental nonprofit TerraCorps and partner organizations across Massachusetts and Rhode Island feel the effects.
Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency cut nearly $400 million of grant funding on April 25 to AmeriCorps, the federal agency dedicated to service and volunteer projects across the nation. The cuts, amounting to 41 percent of AmeriCorps’ annual grant funding, will affect 1,031 organizations and 32,465 of its members and volunteers, according to The Washington Post.
More than 40 nonprofits in Massachusetts and Rhode Island rely on TerraCorps service members and AmeriCorps grant funding to support their work in environmental conservation and local sustainability. Cambridge’s CitySprouts, Green Cambridge and the Charles River Conservancy are three of the groups reeling from the recent decision.
“The loss of this federal grant funding – support that CitySprouts has received in partnership with TerraCorps for the last six years – hits hard, especially at a time when financial uncertainty for nonprofits is looming,” said CitySprouts executive director Susan Diller in a collaborative press release by the three organizations.
TerraCorps service members are partnered with local organizations over an 11-month, 1,700-hour period and focus on “community needs related to local land and water conservation, sustainable farming and local food systems,” the press release said. Before the funding cuts, TerraCorps members at the Cambridge nonprofits expected to be in place through July.
This year, 43 TerraCorps volunteers in Massachusetts and Rhode Island hold coordinator roles in land conservation, land stewardship, sustainable agriculture, community engagement and youth education.
What is lost at CitySprouts
There were five TerraCorps members at the three Cambridge organizations. CitySprouts was involved the longest at six years; the Charles River Conservancy was in its fourth year; Green Cambridge, its second – all effectively ended with the AmeriCorps grant cuts.
At CitySprouts, which encourages hands-on science education and access to nature, its three staffers from TerraCorps served as a community engagement coordinator who worked with after-school programs; a sustainable agriculture coordinator who works with the nonprofits’ garden operations manager to maintain its 24 school gardens; and a youth education coordinator who supports pre-K to fifth grade classrooms in Boston Public Schools.
TerraCorps members are essential to the team. “They are integral members of our small staff and contribute widely to our work, from communications to garden operations to supporting young students in elementary classrooms and afterschool programs,” Diller said.
The federal move “sends us backward from a growth trajectory we have been building since the pandemic,” said Jessica Parsons, director of development and communications at CitySprouts.
Green Cambridge and Conservancy cuts
Green Cambridge, which advocates for green spaces and a more sustainable urban environment, assigned its TerraCorps member to execute its three-years-in-development Alewife Community Health Action Plan toward long-term health and climate resilience in the area. Losing that person also means losing some capacity to develop Restore Corps, a youth employment program focused on ecological restoration, said Steven Nutter, executive director at Green Cambridge.
“Having TerraCorps service members with us has been transformative, particularly in our work in the Alewife Reservation,” Nutter said.
At the Charles River Conservancy, one TerraCorps member takes on the role of land stewardship coordinator each year. “The individual who serves in this role is a lifeline for our park cleanups, volunteer engagement and community education,” said Laura Jasinski, the Charles River Conservancy executive director. “The abrupt cancellation of federal funding is not only devastating to our organization, but it also disrupts the vital work that so many in our city depend on.”
This was the fourth year the conservancy had a TerraCorps member on staff.
Two months more
Since the cuts, TerraCorps secured funding from a private foundation that will allow the current service members to complete their remaining two months’ work and get the stipend they were guaranteed, Parsons said. After that, nonprofits would be responsible for funding the positions.
“CitySprouts will start our fiscal year in September without three staff positions crucial to our work in the public schools and communities,” Parsons said. “We are working on the budget now to see if we can secure funding for at least one of them.”
Hans Nedde, the TerraCorps member placed with the Charles River Conservancy, said the work has been powerful for him.
“Whether it’s litter removal and invasive species management or environmental education and advocacy, seeing the positive effects on the community defines what this service means to me,” Nedde said.
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