Many Montana nonprofits that lost grant funding or AmeriCorps volunteers when the Trump administration cut funding to the service agency in April are concerned about how further budget reductions will impact their work in communities statewide.
AmeriCorps is a “quiet force,” but will be loud if it’s gone, said Shannon Stober, facilitator of the Last Best Alums Council, which represents former AmeriCorps members.
“It truly is a crucial part of the community fabric that happens quietly, constantly in the background,” she said. “People are not doing it for the credit; they’re here to serve the community. So many things that are happening and touching lives that people have no idea are connected to the strings of AmeriCorps.”
In late April, the Trump administration ended nearly $400 million in AmeriCorps grants, affecting about 32,000 members and volunteers. On Thursday, a federal judge ruled the administration must restore hundreds of millions in AmeriCorps grant funding and thousands of service members, but only in the 24 states and Washington, D.C., which sued over the cuts, the Associated Press reported. Montana was not one of those states.
Montana lost $1.2 million in grant funding and 86 member positions statewide, according to America’s Service Commissions, which represents the state groups that manage AmeriCorps funding. In 2024, Montana received $12.7 million in federal AmeriCorps funding, and more than 2,800 members and volunteers served in nearly 390 locations statewide, according to an annual AmeriCorps report.
AmeriCorps did not respond to a request for comment about the funding cuts. The Montana Governor’s Office of Community Service, which oversees AmeriCorps in the state, did not answer specific questions from Montana Free Press but sent a statement.
“Upon receiving notice from AmeriCorps regarding grant terminations, the Governor’s Office of Community Service responded immediately to support service members through a transition period,” the statement said. “Where possible, our office and network of partners has ensured the placement of AmeriCorps service members in new roles to meet needs of community programs administered by state agencies, including at the Montana Departments of Agriculture and Fish, Wildlife and Parks.”
The Department of Agriculture lost a $378,000 grant to fund 14 positions through the Montana AgCorps program, according to the America’s Service Commissions report. The FWP lost a $242,990 grant for nine AmeriCorps members.
Many Montana nonprofits rely on federal partnerships like AmeriCorps to fill service gaps, especially in rural areas where staffing is limited, according to the Montana Nonprofit Association. The cut positions mean a decrease in capacity to support students, seniors and low-income families, and fewer civic engagement opportunities for young people, said Adam Jespersen, the association’s executive director, in a provided statement.
“This isn’t simply about funding — it’s a dismantling of our civic infrastructure and a critical reduction in human capacity that our communities rely upon,” Jespersen wrote. “This is an attack on the very values that nonprofits, and Montanans, hold dear: service, selflessness, compassion and hard work.”
The Missoula Food Bank and Community Center will have eight to 10 fewer volunteers than expected to help run its summer meal program for children due to the federal cuts, said Amy Allison, the nonprofit’s executive director. The food bank was set to receive the AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps volunteers for the first time to help with the growing program, which provided 66,000 meals last year, she said.
“The impact is pretty significant for us,” Allison said. “A challenge in the summer is regular volunteers are on vacation, so we were excited to have additional hands early in the summer to help us get through the time with fewer volunteers. It’s just a huge lift for our organization in general to get off the ground. It would help us run the program more smoothly, help meet the likely increased need we anticipate we’ll experience.”
The food bank is still expecting four AmeriCorps members from a different program to help for a few weeks this summer, Allison said. However, the organization is already planning not to receive those volunteers next year in case of further cuts to AmeriCorps.
“To potentially lose those would be a significant hardship for us in meeting the community need,” she said.
Family Promise, a Great Falls nonprofit that serves families experiencing homelessness, wrote a grant request in 2023 to hire a full-time employee with assistance from AmeriCorps VISTA. The organization finally got approval and hired someone in February of this year. But in March, Family Promise found out that AmeriCorps support for the position was cut.
“For our organization to have a full-time, paid position, and the only other full-time person in our office is the executive director, it was going to do so much to help serve people,” said Cari Yturri, development director at Family Promise. “To have that eliminated, it will set us back.”
The employee handled administrative duties like data tracking, website management and donor tracking. Yturri said that work was badly needed to set up the organization to better demonstrate its work and pursue broader funding opportunities. The salary was paid by AmeriCorps VISTA.
“We don’t know how we’re going to cover that position now,” Yturri said.
That employee, who lives in Great Falls, agreed to volunteer on a limited basis to help do some of the work they would have done in the job.
The Rocky Mountain Development Council, a Helena-based organization that provides child, family and senior services to the city and surrounding counties, houses three AmeriCorps-funded programs centered on senior volunteering: the Retired and Senior Volunteer Program, Foster Grandparent Program and Senior Companion Program.
However, the development council’s AmeriCorps program directors say they have been in limbo since late April while waiting on the status of their combined $846,216 in annual grants.
The Retired and Senior Volunteer Program, which usually receives a $50,000 grant, supports aging residents by helping them remain independent in their own homes as long as possible. The program currently has about 100 volunteers who assist through services including Meals on Wheels, transportation to and from medical appointments, helping at county food banks and providing necessities to homeless shelters and group homes.
'"The return on investment for this program is substantial,” RMDC Retired and Senior Volunteer Program director Samara Lynde told MTFP. “You cannot put a value on the personal, human touch that our programs offer to our older neighbors. Almost half of those that we deliver a meal to every weekday reported that the volunteer is the only person they see or talk to all day. It is definitely more than a meal. If AmeriCorps Seniors funding is cut, most of these volunteers and services will stop.”
The Foster Grandparent and Senior Companion programs each receive $398,108 annually and have 66 volunteers who provide mentorship and companionship in nine counties. Grant funds partially support a $4 an hour stipend, gas reimbursement at 50 cents a mile, and recruitment and training for volunteers.
“I know that for a $4 an hour stipend doesn’t sound like a lot, but they actually rely on that for their daily living expenses,” RMDC Foster Grandparent Program director Angela Nelmark said. “That going away has a huge impact on them. They could continue to volunteer at the school independently, but that stipend going away means they might not be able to pay for a prescription or gas in their car or maybe a utility bill, or especially with groceries increasing and other costs increasing.”
Concerned about additional cuts to AmeriCorps in Trump’s proposed budget, the RMDC AmeriCorps program directors met with Montana’s congressional delegation representatives last week. They hoped to raise awareness of what is at stake without these programs and what challenges the organization already faces. While the meetings went well in educating about what the AmeriCorps Seniors programs do, the directors still have worries about the future.
“ We remain hopeful that people will see the importance and keep funding these on a national level,” Lynde told MTFP after meeting with the representatives. “But we are very concerned that these things will be cut, and if these grants are cut, these services are gone completely.”
The Montana Campus Network for Civic Engagement lost its $105,000 grant for 27 members to work on projects statewide. The network, also known as Montana Campus Compact, includes 18 colleges, tribal colleges and universities, and has operated an AmeriCorps VISTA program for 25 years, said Josh Vanek, its executive director. The program supported projects to increase access to post-secondary education, particularly for low-income families and first-generation students, and address students’ basic needs like food access and mental health support, he said.
The program had five active members when the grant was terminated and was gearing up to hire another 22 to work on 16 projects across the state, Vanek said. Those projects included developing local food systems in Havre, reducing waste at the University of Montana campus and supporting Native American students at Montana State University-Billings, he said.
The five active members were put on administrative holds, meaning they are still receiving a living allowance but are not logging service hours, Vanek said. Their education awards, which eligible members receive after completing service, are also in limbo, he said. While the network is putting together opportunities for AmeriCorps members to finish their service terms through other programs, some are hesitant to transfer, Vanek said.
“The federal government has not been able to guarantee that if people transfer that they still will receive their education award voucher,” he said. “If you have $4,000, $5,000 sitting in the bank and your resignation from the VISTA service that has been terminated might jeopardize access to that, you’re probably going to be pretty practical about that.”
One of Montana’s more recognizable AmeriCorps programs, Montana Conservation Corps, was not affected by the April cuts. The Big Sky Watershed Corps also retained its funding. Typically, 350 to 400 AmeriCorps members serve on MCC crews that complete restoration and conservation work on public lands, said Jono McKinney, CEO and president. While this year’s grants seem intact, 2026 and 2027 are less clear, he said.
“It causes anxiety for us if we start thinking that next year, we will not have our AmeriCorps funding,” McKinney said. “AmeriCorps funds are $4 million for MCC for our two grants. They represent around 28% of our budget. All facets of MCC’s programming are supported by the AmeriCorps dollars, and without them, we would have to look at some pretty deep cuts in our programming and staffing.”
McKinney said the organization plans to help Montana’s members of Congress understand AmeriCorps’ critical role in supporting MCC.
“The reality is AmeriCorps programs operate very effectively,” McKinney said. “They are locally driven with program designs developed locally, needs identified locally, program models created locally. It’s a very locally based solution with federal support. An important part of my work is to help our members of Congress understand the great return on investment for American taxpayer dollars [that is] provided by AmeriCorps programs, whether it’s doing the environmental stewardship that MCC delivers, or connecting Montanans to legal resources and services, to working with rural communities to help them address drought, all those kinds of things.”
This story was originally published by Montana Free Press at montanafreepress.org.
