Hartford Business Journal

HARTFORDBUSINESS.COM | JULY 14, 2025 21 FOCUS | NONPROFITS in every circumstance, which is exhausting for everybody involved," she said. Wagner says the biggest impacts so far to the state have been in public health and education programs, both of which involve nonprofit partners. "Often we will have to put a pause, a stop work order on any contractors that are funded through those funding sources," she said. "We don't typically cancel because of the uncertainty — we want to be able to get things going again if funds are reinstated." But, even when funds are restored, she said, the impacts are often great. "Because there was a period where the funding was not flowing, some of those entities had to let people go," she said. "Some of those people have gone off and found other jobs for sure. So, the uncertainty in and of itself provides a great deal of disruption." The uncertainty will likely continue through the summer as the federal budget reconciliation process moves forward. The Trump administration's budget zeros out funding for the Community Services Block Grant and the fuel assistance program LIHEAP, both key anti-poverty programs in Connecticut. LIHEAP staff at the Department of Health and Human Services have been laid off. Those dollars are administered by a system of nine nonprofits across the state. Emma King is executive director of the Access Community Action Agency, which serves Tolland and Windham counties. Ordinarily she would be starting to hire staff for the LIHEAP application season. "So, we're getting ready to admin- ister a program that currently is zeroed out and has no staff at the federal level," she said. "No matter what happens, the nonprofit network in Connecticut will be there. We're gonna do the best we can — and then you try not to panic in the middle of the night." Shifting priorities The uncertainty for nonprofits extends to other organizations that support them. The Hartford Foun- dation for Public Giving is currently going through its normal planning process to set priorities for 2026, but is also preparing for what may be a major shift. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the foundation made its grantmaking process more flexible, accessible and faster in order to respond to the greatest needs, and it says it's ready to do the same now as nonprofits are impacted by federal grant cuts and greater demand for their services. "We also go beyond the grant, with capacity-building resources to help nonprofits work nimbly and strate- gically to assess funding risks and develop contingency plans," said Elysa Gordon, the Hartford Foundation's vice president of community impact. Karla Fortunato, president of the Connecticut Council for Philanthropy, says her members are seeing three or four times as many grant applications as they usually receive. She also sees the analogy to the pandemic era. "At the beginning of the pandemic, people first just held back to think, okay, let's look at the landscape and see what's happening," Fortunato said. "Then they pushed money out for the things that looked the most dire, and that was food, direct cash to help people who might have lost their jobs, housing." She said that meant other priorities around less basic needs had to be put on hold for a while. She expects this new era of government-imposed scarcity to be similar. But she warns that philanthro- pists don't necessarily see their role as long-term providers of basic government services. "Many of them are offering extra support to nonprofits through training, technical assistance, planning, maybe small grants to help nonprofits prepare," she said. "But I don't think anybody believes they'll be able to backstop more than a few organizations." State lawmakers have said they expect to hold a special session later this year to remake the budget in light of federal cuts, particularly those threatened to Medicaid, which may throw as many as 80,000 people off health coverage in Connecticut, and put the budget out of balance. "If the federal government enacts a budget that cuts funding for programs, those programs remain underfunded, and it will be left to the states to make up any difference," said Gian- Carl Casa, president and CEO of the CT Nonprofit Alliance, an industry advocacy group. He's been fighting for years for nonprofits that provide social services for the state of Connecticut to get better reimbursement. State residents who have government assistance with- drawn — be it Medicaid, food stamps, home heating assistance or any other program — will likely look to nonprofits for help to survive. "Nonprofits have been holding their budgets together with tape and string for the last 15 years — maybe 20," Casa said. "So, they're used to doing more with less. What they've had to do the last couple of years though, is do less with less. And the people who bear the brunt of it are the people who depend on nonprofits for services." Gian-Carl Casa Karla Fortunato The City of New London e Purchasing Agent for the City of New London, CT will re- ceive the following sealed Request for Qualifications/Proposals: Proposal No. 2025‐09 CONL: Contracted Facilities and Event Management Services for Ocean Beach Park. e due date and time for the bids is September 24, 2025 at 2:00 PM. Questions due August 20, 2025. Copies of the RFQP documents may be downloaded from the following websites: City of New London https://newlondonct.org/bid‐documents State of Connecticut ‐ CTSource https://portal.ct.gov/DAS/CTSource/CTSource e City reserves the right to reject any and all proposals, to waive minor irregularities in the bidding and to award the con- tract to other than the low bidder if deemed in the best interest of the City of New London. Joshua Montague Accounting Purchasing Agent

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