Nonprofit and Philanthropic Leaders Come Together in the Urgency of the Moment

This month, nonprofit and philanthropic leaders gathered at the Children’s Institute for the convening, Courage & Collaboration, The Shrinking Safety Net: A Coordinated Response from Nonprofits & Philanthropy.

In her opening remarks, Martine Singer, President and CEO of Children’s Institute, underscored the urgency of coming together amid an unprecedented moment.

“Across Los Angeles, families are navigating extraordinary challenges,” she said. “Rising costs and inflation are pushing housing further out of reach. Proposed federal cuts to the very programs that keep families afloat are creating real fear about the future. And intensified immigration enforcement has shaken the sense of safety in communities that already live on edge.”

Frontline Perspectives

Moderated by Ana Ibarra, Health Reporter for CalMatters, the first of two panels featured nonprofit providers across various segments of the human services sector— education, housing, family and early childhood development, healthcare, food insecurity, and LGBTQ youth services.

Echoing Singer’s opening remarks, Jesse Locke, Clinical Program Manager for Behavioral Health at Children’s Institute, described 2025 as a pandemic of fear and an atmosphere of constant hypervigilance in public spaces for the families and communities she serves.

“From the mental health side, how can a parent be that supportive co-regulator to their child when these are all their stressors,” she said.

Over the summer, when ICE forces entered Los Angeles, school-age children were not spared as witnesses to seeing community members being unlawfully taken or removed from their neighborhood.

When ICE forces descended on a Home Depot in the Westlake Pico-Union enclave, Ambar Martinez-Aguayo, Communities in Schools-LA Site Director, recalled that “our students could see the raids…they saw men with masks, in hats, taking their parents away, taking their siblings, taking their community.”

The tenuous circumstances have also led to greater absenteeism in schools across the County that ultimately result in budget cuts and staff vacancies, including counselors and therapists.

“How do you really assure these students when you’re just not sure yourself…when you’re not sure what is going on and can’t really explain what’s going on,” said Martinez-Aguayo.

Among community clinics, the impact of medicaid reductions through the federal H.R. 1 spending bill passed and signed into law in the summer has resulted in patient no-shows and delays in care. Then, a proposal by Health and Human Services (HHS) to disclose medicaid data with immigration enforcement agencies only made matters worse.

Dr. Aimee Le, Associate Medical Director and pediatrician at Saban Community Clinic, described the impact as having a ‘snowball effect’ on younger children.

“Trauma and chronic stress have been linked to obesity, cardiovascular disease, poor academic success in school, and this becomes a vicious cycle [with] detrimental effect to their long-term healthcare,” said Dr. Le.

Earlier this year, executive orders rolling back protections for LGBTQ communities became a precursor to larger cuts in suicide prevention programs. As a result, the nationwide suicide and crisis lifeline, also known as ‘988’, no longer gives callers the option to connect with a counselor trained in supporting the unique needs of LGBTQ youth living in crisis.

Nova Bright, Director of Training and Learning Development at the Trevor Project, highlighted that the California-response to this shift in services has resulted in funds being set aside to train call centers within the state to serve LGBTQ youth.

At the same time, she warned that “LGBTQ youth are at a massively increased risk for suicide…[so] unless we take a national approach, there are going to be LGBTQ young people all over the country who don’t have those resources.”

Within the housing services sector, the combined impact of funding cuts at the local, state, and federal level, are creating dire circumstances for individuals, youth, and families, such as the immediate loss of rental subsidies that keep residents in housing and working towards self-sufficiency, explained Bernice Saaverdra, Deputy Chief Program Officer of Systems and Regional Planning at LA Family Housing.

Additionally, the situation is compounded by the growing need for food and food assistance since the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Prior to the pandemic, we were serving approximately 300,000 people in LA County per month, through our network of partner agencies and through our direct distribution,” said Hilda Ayala, Senior Director of Programs at LA Regional Food Bank. “Now, we’re serving a little over 1 million people per month.”

The Organizational Impact of Rising Needs and Dwindling Resources

Moderated by Efrain Escobedo, President and CEO of Center for Nonprofit Management, the convening’s second panel featured nonprofit executive leaders discussing the impact of funding cuts within their organization.

“Our work is very much across networks. We cover Los Angeles County…there [are] capacity challenges…it can be facilities, it can be people, it can be funding, it can be volunteers…and that is a real concern as we see some of these cutbacks come in,” said Michael Flood, President & CEO of LA Regional Food Bank.

The current funding crisis has also led to the closures of access centers across Southern California, where the unhoused or those living on the edge of homelessness access critical life-saving resources. As a result, nonprofits are also bracing for the immediate future.

“We are thinking about cuts down the road, so we have been training many of our outreach workers to do the work of an access center,” said Stephanie Klasky-Gamer, President and CEO LA Family Housing. “We’re not meant to wear twelve hats…[and] we are asking people to have multiple roles to close the gap for where the system is failing.”

At neighborhood schools, teachers and staff are being confronted with a reality where their personal and work lives become increasingly inseparable.

As Elmer Roldan, Executive Director of Communities In Schools-LA, explained, “Our staff, in particular, are having to do more with the same amount of resources or less. They’re the ones that are having to figure out what is happening at home, and how they’re navigating the situation in their own household, and then coming back and putting on their cape and trying to help students who are dealing with tremendous amounts of crisis.”

“We’ve had to support patients in ways we weren’t doing before …one of the things we’ve done differently is to lean into more [patient] advocacy,” said Muriel Nouwezem, Chief Executive Officer at Saban Community Clinic. “We felt it was really important for us to [explain] to patients what H.R. 1 means and how it’s going to translate in coverage.”

For nonprofit organizations, reacting to constant changes makes planning for the short and long-term nearly impossible. As Singer explained, “We’ve gone through scenario planning exercises over and over again. It takes a huge amount of effort. It takes away from creativity and peace of mind…creating tremendous stress and strain and fraying of infrastructure, the more you have to do that.”

A Powerful Call to Action

The conversation and workshop sparked a powerful call to action: nonprofits and investors must unite more often to tackle shared challenges and design bold, sustainable solutions. By collaborating creatively, participants saw opportunities to stretch limited financial resources and amplify collective impact. Investors, in particular, can play a catalytic role—fueling the innovation and risk-taking that smaller organizations often can’t afford alone. Together, we can unlock new revenue streams, close critical funding gaps, and ensure local programs not only survive but thrive for the communities that rely on them most.

Special thanks to co-hosts of the Courage & Collaboration convening: Communities in Schools-Los Angeles, Saban Community Clinic, Los Angeles Regional Foodbank, LA Family Housing, the Trevor Project, CalMatters, and the Center for Nonprofit Management.