YWCA Alaska Federal Funding Update
YWCA Alaska was given an amazing opportunity to expand programming. Then the Federal Government turned it into a nightmare.
Posted Article on the YWCA Alaska LinkedIn
In May 2024, I was board president and working through transition here at YWCA Alaska. We hired an interim CEO, who helped bridge this leadership gap and ensure stability. We got word from Senator Murkowski’s office that we were appropriated $500,000 from SAMSHA (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Association) to expand “youth programming.”
We had no idea how this came about: there was no paperwork, no plan. After some clarifying questions, we presented the opportunity to the board and discussed whether to accept the funding. We wanted to build a relationship with the federal government and support the community with the needs they were telling us was needed: a thought leader on issues of systemic racism and youth empowerment (specifically because racism is a mental health issue). We went through the mountain of paperwork to accept the funding, fighting with tech support to get appropriate log ins, and meet the impending deadline, just a month away.
YWCA Alaska accepted $484,000 of federal appropriations through SAMSHA and went to work on program development and job descriptions for the staff. In discussions with program officers and legislative staff, we were encouraged to share that we feel racism is a mental health issue and include that language in the formal grant documents. So, we did. We built a comprehensive and robust upstream intervention curriculum for youth and young adults experiencing mental health challenges and we were ready to launch it that school year.
Eventually I stepped down from the board and applied for the CEO role, was hired in August of 2024, and took up the project in its entirety. I hired three staff in October/November of 2024 to manage youth empowerment programming and in partnership with Camp Fire Alaska, we were able to jump into after school sites to deliver our elementary programming and host teen/young adult leadership councils with more mature conversations about mental health and racism issues. Things were going well. Then November came.
When Trump was elected…. I knew that night that my job as CEO of this small social justice organization just got infinitely harder. I still didn’t think appropriated money, controlled by congress, would be impacted. I did know that our 5-year grant opportunity was most certainly only going to be one but what happened a couple of months later in January of 2025 shook my resolve.
I started receiving several texts from colleagues in the nonprofit sector the night before the federal funding freeze. I still sat in denial: no waaaayyyy… SAMSHA is a 30-year funding source, they wouldn’t touch that! Our work is about mental health and CHILDREN! That’s not what this administration cares to intervene on… I then checked our payment request system for the grant… we were locked out. I got out of bed at 5am the next day, went to my computer, tried to log in to that payment request system several more times and when I couldn’t, started scouring the news. Immediately my board and I were thrown back into survival mode and deciding how we were going to move forward. Do we lay off all the staff WE JUST hired? Do we hedge our bets and hope this will pass soon and we’ll get our funding? Do we wait a month and revisit? Do we do an emergency appeal?
We scenario planned the absolute life out of this predicament. Our board leaned in, yet again, on this massive organization altering situation and were ready to lead. We agreed on our scenarios and held our breath.
We were spared and got access to our funding to do the work that was approved months before. We went about our work and did amazing things. YWCA Alaska worked with over 150 youth across several after school sites and witnessed program impact: students who didn’t understand why their friends who didn’t look like them were upset suddenly understood enough to be an amazing friend to them. Kids aren’t born racist. YWCA Alaska was there to share a perspective of empathy and emotional intelligence. Things were going well, and YWCA Alaska was preparing for FY26, when we wouldn’t have half a million dollars to do this amazing work. But… our nightmare kicked into high gear …
YWCA Alaska staff had been meeting monthly with the program officers at SAMSHA. I will not share their names because they are humans who are doing their jobs. But I’ll absolutely critique their guidance of us in this situation. Late summer, in one of these monthly meetings, we were told about a no cost extension (NCE). This would allow us to utilize funding in the grant not yet spent for up to another year. Since we could not facilitate the DEI workshops for faculty/staff at our local school district we had planned (because DEI is in opposition to the presidential administrations priorities), we had about $65,000 left over we could use for payroll of our staff to continue youth empowerment programming through the end of 2025. We went through the application process and submitted the NCE.
On September 4th, one of our program officers reached out to me about reviewing our NCE:
This immediately causes me alarm for several reasons:
- Our programming, that was approved in June of 2024, was youth programming expansion.
- We were encouraged to include DEI language since we believe racism is mental health challenge.
- The program officer did not define what they meant by “Recipient acknowledges that SAMHSA funding recipients must not spend SAMHSA funds on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) activities.”
- We were given a very short timeline in which to “comply.”
I immediately reached out to our YWCA USA partners who have a legal team reviewing the challenges to federal funding at other YWCAs. I also reached out to Senator Murkowski’s office for guidance. The initial guidance was to ask for that definition of “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) activities.” You shouldn’t be surprised to learn I never got an answer to that question. I was also counseled not to talk to the program officers over the phone, so we kept all communications from this moment forward in writing.
September 8th, the program officer reached out again to ask us to comply with the DEI Certification Statement and ask us to reallocate already approved and already spent funding. For context: what the text below refers to is eCornell’s DEI certification program that was completed by three staff members in November and December of 2024. Things the program officer knew about.
After regrouping with our legal counsel, we discussed how much risk YWCA Alaska was willing to take in this situation. The program officer yet again reaches out, asking about compliance with the DEI Statement. This was followed by three phone calls starting at 5am AST.
We walked away from this no cost extension because we will not back down from our mission. Our grant proposal was about youth programming and mental health. It does not violate any laws or policies. We followed the intention laid out by SAMSHA and the fund agreement. There is nothing radical or dangerous about DEI. It’s very disappointing to me, as someone who worked for a funder for six years, we went this far in conversation. These program officers knew our mission and our work. They knew what was spent and what wasn’t. To suggest a no cost extension knowing full well we couldn’t actually move forward with it is a massive breach of trust in such a volatile situation. I do not hold them personally responsible but would not have done what they did.
Because of this situation, and the attacks on DEI from the Trump Administration, YWCA Alaska cannot not and will not accept federal grant dollars. We won’t change who we are. I share this with you all to help you understand that this isn’t just something you read about on social media or in the news: it’s happening to organizations like ours, right here in Alaska. This threat is real.
The expectation to continue with less, to fill in when the government won’t, the mentality that “oh, a nonprofit will handle that” is misguided and dangerous. Nonprofits cannot do this work for free; YWCA Alaska is no exception. Nonprofits cannot do this work without staff; YWCA Alaska is no exception. Nonprofits cannot help the community in great times of need without support; YWCA Alaska is no exception.
Jessie Lavoie, CEO
YWCA Alaska