A Mid-Decade Census?!
Back in 2019 and 2020, the nonprofit sector was heavily invested in maximizing response rates to the U.S. Census, which is constitutionally required to happen every ten years. Why? Because the Census is enormously important to our sector: It’s directly linked to $1.5 trillion in funding–oh, and apportionment of seats in the U.S. House, which matters quite a bit, too.

(Ohio has lost seats in every Census going back to 1970. With 15 seats currently, Ohio has its smallest number of seats since 1823-1833. But I digress.)

In 2019-20, the Census was subject to a significant fight in the Supreme Court, where the then-Trump Administration lost an attempt to add a citizenship question to the Census. The 2020 Census was further complicated by the pandemic, which made it more difficult to administer in the traditional way.

As you may have seen, there is an unprecedented fight billowing over mid-decade gerrymandering, with the Supreme Court having opened the floodgates in 2019 for patently partisan efforts to squelch minority party representation in a given state.

The scramble is happening now to make it harder for Democrats to retake the majority in the U.S. House after the 2026 elections. So there is a tit-for-tat brewing that has started in red-state Texas, with a response being galvanized in red-state California. But the domino effect here could be really disruptive–and red-state Ohio will be one of those dominoes to fall with a new map forthcoming. (Ohio’s map was going to be redrawn regardless of all this, but let’s not complicate this any more than I already have.)

So now, the White House wants to go further: Donald Trump has called for a mid-decade Census, one that would not count people living here without legal status. (That is not a population that the Census has ever excluded, because the Constitution requires every resident be counted regardless of legal status.) The White House believes the mid-decade Census would benefit Republicans electorally.

If the mid-decade Census proceeds, it would create a second avenue beyond the partisan gerrymandering fight, through which to affect the 2026 (and 2028) elections.

And it would all have enormous financial effects on nonprofits.

We’ll be watching this closely as this unfolds.

But there’s something else unfolding in real time with a more immediate and direct effect for nonprofits…

New Executive Order on Federal Grantmaking

Donald Trump has issued an Executive Order that makes clear what has been abundantly clear for some time: His Administration is eager to significantly restrict and alter the discretionary grants made by the federal government to ensure alignment with the Administration’s priorities.

Importantly, there is a mandated 30-day period starting immediately for federal agencies to review each agency’s grant terms and conditions, with many changes coming thereafter.

Here’s an excerpt from the EO’s “Fact Sheet,” which is filled with falsehoods about nonprofits.

• Going forward, President Trump’s appointees will review funding opportunity announcements and grant awards to verify that each grant dollar benefits Americans instead of lining grantees’ pocketbooks or furthering causes that damage America.
• Award decisions will undergo more rigorous evaluation by political appointees and subject matter experts to ensure they benefit the American public, align with Administration priorities, and are coordinated across agencies to avoid duplication.
• The Order also allows for the termination of future grants that do not meet these criteria, including if grantees use their awards in a manner that is inconsistent with the policy objectives in the Order.
• The Order mandates that agencies simplify funding opportunity announcements with plain language.
• The Order directs agencies to award grants to a wide array of meritorious grantees, not just the universities and nonprofits that have received awards year after year.

And here’s important language from the EO itself:

(i) Discretionary awards must, where applicable, demonstrably advance the President’s policy priorities.

(ii) Discretionary awards shall not be used to fund, promote, encourage, subsidize, or facilitate:

(A) racial preferences or other forms of racial discrimination by the grant recipient, including activities where race or intentional proxies for race will be used as a selection criterion for employment or program participation;

(B) denial by the grant recipient of the sex binary in humans or the notion that sex is a chosen or mutable characteristic;

(C) illegal immigration; or

(D) any other initiatives that compromise public safety or promote anti-American values.

In the weeks ahead, we will be working with our Congressional delegation, legal counsel, and partners across Ohio and the country to both understand and anticipate the implications of this Order to shape our collective advocacy and community response.

Want these updates straight to your inbox? Subscribe to our State of Affairs newsletter.