For decades, the Erie Community Foundation has been helping to fund nonprofits around Erie.

That job has gotten more complicated. Under the Trump administration, the federal funding that nonprofits relied on was briefly paused.

Now, some of it is being cut for good.

“I think the discussions have been fairly consistent,” said Pat Herr, vice president of community impact. “Nonprofits are worried about the impacts of the cuts.”

Herr has noticed more nonprofits asking for grants. Usually, a lot of them are asking for matches to federal funding.

“We’re seeing more nonprofits asking for funding. I don’t know if there’s a direct correlation, I can’t say for sure. We have [an] unusual amount of organizations coming to us for funding,” he said.

One of the nonprofits caught in the middle is the Multicultural Community Resource Center in Erie.

Most of their work is focused on helping the refugees who are moving into Erie.

Some of their work includes “assisting with language classes (ESL),” said the organization’s Executive Director, Katie Kretz. “We help with skill development. Those are federal dollars that are funneled through the state. So our contract is with the state to provide those services,” she said. 

But they had to temporarily stop those services when they stopped getting federal funding for them. 

“We had families that were receiving that service and then we were told that we could no longer provide those services. So we had to quickly kind of pivot,” she said.

They are able to help those families again. But they’re still not sure what they’ll be able to do in the future.

Kretz said it might not be easy to get grants to pay for their services. That’s because President Trump is targeting Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs.

“We have to be very thoughtful of not saying that it supports DEI,” she said. “That’s difficult to do because we do serve such a diverse population and we are proud of that.”

She said their work fits the president’s America First policy.

“Even though we’re working with a population that wasn’t necessarily born in America, they’re here, so they are part of the American fabric,” she said.   

It’s work, she said, they won’t stop even if it might look a little different.

“We’ll figure it out,” she said. “We’re a pretty bright group here at MCRC.”