At a US House of Representatives hearing on Wednesday titled “Public Funds, Private Agendas: NGOs Gone Wild,” Republican and Democratic members clashed as each party sought to paint exceedingly different portraits of the US nonprofit sector.
The hearing, convened by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform’s subcommittee Delivering on Government Efficiency (DOGE), comes as nonprofits, from colleges and universities to NGOs and aid organizations to food pantries and job-placement services, have been left reeling from a series of blows—some realized, some attempted and others expected to come—from the Trump White House and the Republican-led Congress.
Speaking as the sole witness invited by the Democrats as the House minority party, National Council of Nonprofits president and CEO Diane Yentel summed up these threats to the nonprofit sector in remarks submitted to the subcommittee:
Across the country, nonprofits have seen funding for critical programs reduced or eliminated due to arbitrary and unlawful cuts of congressionally-approved spending and reckless federal funding freezes by the Trump administration. The administration has threatened nonprofits with revoked tax-exempt status, and is pursuing civil and even criminal investigations of nonprofits—not for any proven wrongdoing, but for work prioritized by local communities that is at odds with the administration’s ideology.
“These actions aren’t about government efficiency or about reform. They are attempted censorship disguised as accountability.”
In her opening remarks, Yentel, whose organization is among multiple nonprofit parties suing the Trump administration over its attempted and actual freezing of congressionally appropriated federal funds to thousands of US nonprofits, described the resulting harm to communities: “Food banks across the country, already struggling with high levels of need, are serving fewer meals due to spending cuts. Nonprofit health clinics have closed, leaving neighbors without access to potentially life-saving care.”
Yentel also commented on broader political dynamics in her defense of the sector:
These actions aren’t about government efficiency or about reform. They are attempted censorship disguised as accountability. This is weaponization of the federal government to chill dissent, and it is wrong whatever party is in control. In a functioning and healthy democracy, nonprofits must be free to identify and meet local needs, without political interference. Fear of retribution, or facing punishment for holding a different point of view from those in political power.
Conservatives Attack
Meanwhile, the House panel’s three other guests, invited by Republican majority members, and each affiliated with various right-wing projects, aired an array of grievances seemingly aimed at a handful of specific nonprofit organizations. The speakers imputed to these groups—some named and others generalized—a number of alleged affronts from serving as covert political organizations to scamming the government for money to supporting criminality.
Mark Krikorian, of the Center for Immigration Studies—a right-wing nonprofit that the Southern Poverty Law Center describes as “the go-to think tank for the anti-immigrant movement”—described nonprofits offering aid to migrants traveling through Mexico as “a coordinated, well-funded assistance to design to [sic] undermine US immigration laws.”
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“Status quo nonprofit leaders are scared by DOGE examining their government funding.”
Scott Walter, of the Capital Research Center, a right-wing self-styled think tank, which describes its purpose as to “examine how foundations, charities, and other nonprofits spend money and get involved in politics and advocacy, often in ways that donors never intended and would find abhorrent,” said that “far too many” nonprofits are: “…really BGOs—Basically Government Organizations—for two reasons. First, they get most of their money from government, not citizens. Second, they serve the big government political agenda that fights to centralize power in Washington for the benefit of the left’s preferred political party.”
“It’s understandable, though not admirable, that status quo nonprofit leaders are scared by DOGE examining their government funding,” Walter testified.
Daniel Turner of conservative 501c4 organization Power the Future derided the recipients of grant funds for clean energy as seemingly nothing more than scammers, noting: “Any future president can announce a slush fund, appoint loyalists to dole it out, and anyone can create a group to get government billions, if they know the right people, bypassing that pesky thing called Congress.”
Lawmakers Go On Record
If advocates for the health and freedom of the nonprofit sector were able to score a victory Wednesday, it might have been this: Even those House members furthest on the right or most disposed to project rage upon the nonprofit sector (often via Yentel) very noticeably shied away from attacking the entire sector themselves, or maligning nonprofits as a whole with the gusto that their guest witnesses invoked.
“This is about Trump and Republicans punishing people who disagree with them.”Meanwhile, Democratic lawmakers spoke not only to champion the nonprofit sector, which they said delivers countless social goods to society, but against what they described, in keeping with Yentel’s testimony, as a larger effort to control free speech.
“What are nonprofit organizations? Food banks, legal aid clinics, homeless shelters, organizations that are the glue of our communities,” said ranking member Melanie A. Stansbury (D-NM). “In fact, right now, [the Republicans] are withholding a half-trillion dollars illegally from nonprofit organizations that provide services for our communities, public safety, health services, housing, the Big Brothers and Big Sisters of America, Boys and Girls Club, and Habitat for Humanity.”
Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) accused President Trump of orchestrating “a targeted, dangerous assault on the independence of our nonprofit organizations.”
“This is about Trump and Republicans punishing people who disagree with them. It is about attacking nonprofits of all sizes that serve the vulnerable and marginalized and stand in the gap for our communities. It’s about trying to intimidate every charity and nonprofit in this country and spark a fear that if you speak up, if you do something the Republicans don’t like, you could be next.”
