Quad Cities Nonprofits, Local Leaders and Lawmakers Learn About Federal Funding Changes
Like many nationwide, local nonprofits are facing serious challenges and they plan to band together to address planned federal funding cuts and how to survive them.
Shifting federal priorities were addressed Monday in a Nonprofit Legislative Roundtable, led by four QC nonprofit leaders – River Bend Food Bank president/CEO Chris Ford; Community Health Care CEO Tom Bowman; Humility Homes & Services CEO Ashley Velez, and Project NOW executive director Rev. Dwight Ford.
The roundtable – attended by many area nonprofit leaders and elected officials on the municipal, state and federal levels – was held at River Bend Food Bank, which serves a 23-county area in western Illinois and eastern Iowa. The event was a joint effort between the QC chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals and Wastyn & Associates.
In March 2025, Wastyn & Associates surveyed the local nonprofit community to quantify the impact of planned federal funding cuts on the Quad Cities community.
They sent a follow-up survey at the beginning of June to again measure their impacts, to 672 individuals, the majority of whom represent nonprofits in the greater QC area. Two subsequent emails encouraged participation between then and June 13 when the survey closed.
In total, 78 individuals completed the survey.
Of the nonprofits who responded, 29% consider themselves human service organizations, followed by 19% in education, 15.5% in arts and culture and 10% in health. 12% selected “other,” mostly subsets of human services.
Linda Wastyn, head of the consulting firm Wastyn & Associates, discusses the results of her 2025 surveys of Quad Cities nonprofits, Monday, June 30, 2025. Looking on are (L-R) Rev. Dwight Ford of Project NOW, Chris Ford of River Bend Food Bank, Ashley Velez of Humility Homes & Services, and Tom Bowman of Community Health Care (photo by Jonathan Turner).
Of respondents, 89% have already experienced or foresee some impact – either significant or slight, a 16% increase from March. No organization reported that they do not currently experience or anticipate experiencing any impact compared with 13.5% in March. 11% either find it too early to predict the impact or simply do not know.
The most significant increases emerged in the need to diversify funding streams (19% increase), higher client demand for services (12.5% increase), and need to change or cut services (12.1% increase). Also notable, nearly one third of organizations anticipate the need for layoff or furlough staff, an 8% increase over just 3 months ago.
Nearly half of nonprofits in this survey anticipate needing to close or change programs, nearly one-third anticipate laying off or furloughing staff, and nearly one in ten may need to close their doors, all higher than in March. In fact, only 2% of nonprofits anticipate making no changes.
Wastyn’s report said that to better manage these changes, nonprofits need to understand ways to diversify their funding streams or find alternative sources of funds, provide mental health resources for their staff, and receive training on engaging their board members in discussions around the current federal funding environment.
“We were astonished and horrified to find that things had gotten as much worse as we thought they would,” Linda Wastyn, president of Wastyn & Associates, said Monday of June’s results compared to March.
98% of nonprofits expect some kind of impact and no nonprofit said they don’t expect to be touched by the federal budget situation. Half said they will likely cut programs, and one-third anticipate increased demand for services.
Chris Ford, president/CEO of River Bend Food Bank, speaks at Monday’s event discussing the impact of changing federal funding priorities on QC nonprofits (photo by Jonathan Turner).
“You’ve got higher demand and fewer services; that’s going to create a perfect storm,” Wastyn said. The QC nonprofit sector employs 40,000 people and one-third of nonprofits expect to lay off staff, which will also add to that demand for services regarding assistance with food, housing, utilities, and health care.
Nearly one in 10 (out of a total of 4,000 nonprofits) think they may have to close, she noted.
With increased pressure on funding, many funders are shifting to support basic needs, Wastyn said. That means many nonprofits who don’t focus on those will be impacted.
Local foundations provide up to $25 million a year to nonprofits, and may be asked to fill the gap caused by federal cuts.
Findings and comments from major speakers Monday
- Community Health Care: Up to 10,000 patients could lose Medicaid coverage, as part of proposed $900 billion in nationwide Medicaid cuts over 10 years. Premiums on federal marketplace insurance plans can run as high as $900 a month, making them unaffordable for low-income people.
Tom Bowman said CHC serves about 50,000 people a year. A lot of talking points around the bill have focused on Medicaid work requirements for working-age people.
“The vast majority of people in Medicaid, and the expansion population, are already working,” he said. “The comments make it seem like a person is sitting at home collecting a check from the federal government, from Medicaid. That is not how the government works.
“Medicaid pays for services,” Bowman said. Making more cuts will force people to lose insurance, and bring the nation back to the situation before the Affordable Care Act was passed, he noted.
“We do want people to work, but we’ve seen this implemented in two different states – in Arkansas and Georgia, and in both cases, massive numbers of people that would have otherwise qualified were disqualified due to bureaucracy and inappropriate systems for tracking their eligibility. That’s what we want to avoid.”
CHC expects 5,000 to 10,000 to lose Medicaid coverage, up to a $10 million loss, affecting all those medical providers. Medicaid traditionally covers half the cost of care, Bowman said.
“It’s not really an option, to put people in the marketplace,” he said of the ACA. Qualification for Medicaid ends usually when you make more than $10.50 an hour.
“If you are gonna try and get insurance through your employer, how are you gonna afford that?” Bowman asked. “There’s not a marketplace option that’s affordable and the employer option just is not affordable enough, and that uninsured rate starts to climb.”
If those patients come to CHC, he said he will not have the financial resources to serve them.
“Don’t forget, the patient doesn’t go away,” Bowman said. “If the coverage changes, the patient still needs medication to treat their diabetes, or they need to get their kid an annual physical to go to school or they need to have a DOT physical for their employer.”
Ashley Velez, CEO of Humility Homes and Services, speaks at the Monday roundtable at River Bend Food Bank, Davenport (photo by Jonathan Turner).
- River Bend Food Bank: 47,000 people could lose access to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), on top of 136,400 people in the, food prices will rise and the retail workforce will decline.
Chris Ford said rates of food insecurity (meaning people who aren’t sure where their next meal will come from) are at a five-year high in Illinois, Iowa, and the River Bend service area.
“It’s heartbreaking that today, the food insecurity rate of children is 17.4 percent, which outpaces the general public by almost 5 percent,” he said. Making cuts to the SNAP program is “unimaginable,” Ford said.
The proposed bill would cut 9.5 billion meals on average every year, Ford said, which is 3.5 billion meals more than the 199 food banks (including River Bend) that the Feeding America network provided nationwide last year.
“We simply cannot afford to lose the most effective tool we have, in SNAP,” he said. “We absolutely cannot fill the food void left by the passage of the bill in its current state.”
The states will struggle to absorb new costs left by federal funding cuts, which will likely reduce funding for other critical programs like education, health care, public safety and transportation, Ford said.
“These proposed cuts come at a fragile time, when communities are still recovering from the pandemic,” he noted.
Families will also face tough decisions on how to stretch their limited resources – how to cover food, utilities, health care and housing.
“They must decide between purchasing food or paying the utility bill,” Ford said.
“SNAP is more than a moral commitment to fight hunger – it’s an economic engine,” he said. “Every one dollar spent on SNAP generates $1.54 in economic activity.”
If cuts become law, they will hurt food-related businesses, grocers and farmers.
Ford said according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, farmers stand to lose $24 billion in revenue over 10 years if SNAP cuts take effect.
The River Bend Food Bank, based in Davenport, works with 300+ partner agencies in 23 counties in western Illinois and eastern Iowa.
“The most significant consequences will be felt by those in our community who are most vulnerable,” he said. “The people who rely on SNAP to nourish themselves each day and have limited financial resources, less access to transportation, and health issues.”
This is a direct threat to the quality of life for residents and businesses, Ford said. River Bend serves 40,000 children in its service area.
“River Bend Food Bank is a resilient organization,” he said. “We were born out of the farm crisis of the 1970s and we’ve outlasted the pandemic.”
“We’ll continue to carry out our mission, regardless of the outcome of this bill,” Ford said. “I ask you as leaders to advocate for the work that is being done by all nonprofits.”
- Humility Homes & Services: $150,000 of homeless prevention funding and $1 million in HOME funding would be eliminated. All Permanent Supportive Housing funded from HUD would be gone. The QC has 96 units of Permanent Supportive Housing but needs a total of 432 units, and the area has 15 units for families, but needs 75 units.
Ashley Velez said: “We’re already operating at a vast deficit, but there is not a plan on the state level to help us make up the difference. That’s what the federal government is asking us to do. That’s scary to us.”
Compared to food assistance and health care help, it’s typically been much more difficult to get assistance with housing, she noted.
“There’s a waitlist, for any type of housing long-term,” Velez said. “It is going to be very costly on us.”
- Project NOW: Currently, there are 17,389 households in the QC living below the federal poverty level, which would grow under the planned cuts. The cuts to Medicaid and SNAP would have a grave impact on Head Start children and families – a majority of both receive these benefits.
Project NOW served 128,535 home-delivered meals last year, and that number will grow with federal cuts. Planned cuts to the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) would leave thousands of people in the cold, Rev. Dwight Ford said.
In 2024, Project NOW provided 5,812 low-income families with assistance for utilities, with an average benefit of $841.
Ford likened the current situation to the Minneapolis I-35 bridge collapse in 2007, which killed 13 people and could have been prevented if the bridge was properly maintained.
“If this bill passes the way it has been intended, it will break the bridge — it won’t allow us to fix that which has been broken,” he said. “It will collapse the bridge and people will plummet down faster than we’ve ever seen. Truth is, it will create a tsunami of social challenges, on top of that which already exist.”
“When you work to ensure that the lowest rung of socio-economic individuals and families are secure, what you have done is stabilize the entire ecosystem of our region, and we are better than this,” Rev. Ford said. “My sincere hope is we can sing in a unified voice, and this is unacceptable. There has to be another way.”
A new collaborative effort, OneTable QC, was launched at the Nonprofit Legislative Roundtable on June 30. It aims to transform today’s dialogue into tomorrow’s awareness, advocacy, and action.
When federal budgets shift, local lives shift. You’re invited to pull up a seat, see the data, hear the stories, and take action as QC nonprofits, donors, and legislators respond to federal budget changes.
Jenny Colvin, vice president for AFP-QC and River Bend Food Bank, on Monday invited all QC residents to join a conversation about how to address the issue.
People will share stories across one table and decide together how we will move forward, she said.
To stay connected on future actions, visit afpquadcities.com/onetable.
