COLUMBIA — As the Trump administration looks to roll back funding for nonprofits across the country, Midlands-area organizations are steeling themselves for a reduction in services amid confused messaging.

Since January, President Donald Trump’s administration has issued various executive orders and budget proposals aiming to cut millions of funding for nonprofit organizations in the pursuit of reducing government spending and increasing efficiency.

Some of these orders have been subsequently rolled back or reduced in scope, but the potential for a crippling cut of funds has Columbia-area nonprofits scrambling to figure out what’s next.

Some organizations are faced with imminent cuts, while others have more time to plan, said Jennifer Moore, United Way of the Midlands vice president of Community Impact. Some stand to lose around 25 percent of their funding, others as high as 75 percent, she said.

Groups are feeling out if they can recalibrate funding to keep providing their services, while others will have to decide what programs to cut and how. Even increased contributions from the private and religious sector won’t be enough to fill the gap, Moore said.

The 74 organizations that partner with United Way of the Midlands stand to lose millions of dollars of funding. Nonprofits that help victims of domestic violence and provide services for disabled people and after-school care and health screenings for children have already faced staffing cuts or are being target for more, Moore said.

“Taking away any of those services, you’re talking about maybe a meal not going to a senior who's homebound,” she said. “You may have someone who's experiencing domestic violence who may not have someone to call for help. Someone with a disability that may not have someone to help them live independently. It’s people we’re talking about.”

Some of the organizations staring down the barrel are federally mandated to provide their services, even if their funding dries up.

“So you’re looking at a situation where you’ve got some agencies that are required to do the work and have no money to do it,” said Sara Fawcett, United Way of the Midlands president and CEO.

Some of the programs facing cuts could pass taxpayer expenses along in other ways, Fawcett said. Nonprofits providing child care or assistance to disabled persons could prevent parents from working, stripping their contributions from the economy and pushing them toward the social safety net, she said.

Groups that have already had funding cut have been given no time to improve their performance or prepare the people they serve for the lights to be turned off.

“The way that these have been coming down is you find out on a certain day that you find out one day that your funding is gone tomorrow,” she said. “I mean, literally tomorrow. And, OK, someone in D.C. went and looked and looked at efficiency measures and decided program X needs to go away. I can accept that. But there's no wind down.”

As a global nonprofit that in part connects other local organizations to funding sources, United Way administers its own stringent guidelines to decide if grant money is spent effectively and if it should be given again next year, Fawcett said.

“I think we all want our tax dollars to be spent efficiently, there is no doubt about that,” Fawcett said. “I want my state and federal taxes to be spent in a responsible and efficient way.

"What I'm afraid we're losing is efficiency versus effectiveness, because there are ways that dollars can be spent, dollars can be managed, or whether that be given or taken away, that may be considered efficient, but is it effective?”

Caleb Bozard covers business, growth and development for the Post & Courier Columbia. He has previously written for The State and the Times and Democrat. He graduated from the University of South Carolina in 2023.