For leaders of 826 Boston, walking away from a $250,000 federal grant was the easy part.
On Feb. 14, the agency overseeing the Boston nonprofit’s federal grants flagged an annual application from 826 as problematic for featuring the words: “diversity, equity, and DEI.” New rules from the Trump administration required grant recipients to eliminate diversity, equity, and inclusion programs if they wanted to receive funding.
826 Boston, which offers free writing and tutoring programs to 3,700 students at its Roxbury headquarters and inside six Boston Public Schools, had five days to decide whether to change its mission or withdraw its application. The grant — which the nonprofit has received annually for more than a decade — pays for 11 tutors.
The board vote was unanimous. 826 decided to forego federal funding.
“I was really proud of our board because in that circumstance, and in withdrawing the grant, it wasn’t a question of whether we should do it, it was how we should do it,” recalled Janet Tiampo, president of 826 Boston’s board.
Now comes the hard part: How to fill the sizable hole left in next fiscal year’s $3.5 million budget.
“I’m not going to tell you it’s not scary. It is super scary,” added Tiampo. “$250,000 for our organization is a lot money.”
Many organizations that rely on federal funding or contracts are facing a Sophie’s Choice: Comply with new mandates that conflict with their values, or give up a critical source of money. Some have caved, like Big Law firms and Columbia University, to preserve their bottom lines. Others like Harvard University are defying Trump’s demands, even if it comes at a hefty cost.
826 Boston’s decision stands out because they don’t have much of a financial back stop — no endowment to lean on — but compromising their values would have been too big of a price to pay. The federal money, administered by AmeriCorps, accounted for about 7 percent of the nonprofit’s current budget.
826 Boston can now only afford five tutors in the coming year. AmeriCorps’s grant paid the stipends of yearlong volunteers it sends to serve as tutors. There have been multiple media reports in recent days indicating Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency is eying deep cuts at the volunteer service agency.
To make up for the loss of federal money, 826 Boston plans to step up fund-raising from events, foundations, corporations, and individuals. A little more than 40 percent of its overall revenue comes from roughly 1,100 individual donors; about half of these gifts are under $100 each. (In full disclosure, I gave $25 to a 826 Boston fund-raiser last year, and that’s how I learned about the $250,000 shortfall when they asked me to donate this year.)
As much as it hurts to lose funding, Corey Yarbrough, executive director of 826 Boston, said the organization couldn’t operate on tenterhooks. If a student in their program wrote an essay on historical oppression, could that jeopardize the nonprofit’s federal grant?
“We couldn’t live in that uncertainty,” said Yarbrough. “We wanted to take a bold stand, but we also wanted to be proactive and restructure on our own terms.”
For many organizations that rely on federal funding — universities and hospitals included — the uncertainty began as soon as President Trump was sworn in on Jan. 20. That day Trump signed a slew of executive orders, and the one that caught the attention of 826 Boston was titled: “Ending Radical And Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing.”
Yarbrough’s phone immediately blew up with texts from staff wondering if the organization would be affected. 826 Boston couldn’t be clearer about its mission to amplify the voices of students, many of whom are of color, and to create inclusive spaces. Could the nonprofit lose funding? Would there be layoffs?
The simple answer: Yarbrough didn’t know.
“A lot of the ambiguity,” he said, “is part of intentional chaos that the administration wants to create.”
Yarbrough and the 826 Boston board made another gutsy choice: To go public with their story in the hopes that it will inspire other organizations to stand up for their values too. On April 2, the nonprofit posted a three-minute video of Yarbrough sitting inside one of its BPS writing centers explaining their decision.
“I’m hugely both impressed and also in awe,” said Makeeba McCreary, president of the New Commonwealth Fund, a Boston nonprofit launched by local Black and Latino business executives to tackle systemic racism. “Really kudos to his board and to him for having that kind of courage to say ‘we’re going to find another way, we don’t ever have to succumb to checking a box that we don’t believe in.”
Perhaps more than anything, 826 Boston believes that doing the right thing still matters in this world, and that when one door closes, another will open. Just as 826 Boston made the momentous decision to forgo funding, New Commonwealth Fund’s board made another: awarding them a $75,000 grant, significantly more than what they’ve given 826 Boston in the past.
The Legislature could also play a role. Among the earmarks the House passed in a supplemental budget related to surplus proceeds from the so-called millionaires tax is $200,000 for 826 Boston. The proposal was in the works before the nonprofit decided to forgo federal funding, but now there’s new urgency for it.
Visit one of their centers — as I did recently in Egleston Square — and you begin to understand why 826 Boston made the choice they did. Starting at 4:30 p.m., a steady stream of elementary students grab goldfish crackers from the snack drawer and nestle into desks working with an army of tutors and volunteers, reading together and getting help with homework. 826 Boston nurtures writing and creative thinking, even publishing anthologies of student writing. Abiding by the new grant rules would amount to censoring how their students and staff think.
826 Boston is still trying to figure out how to plug the hole left by the loss of federal funding. They’re hoping their current donors will dig deeper, and the publicity around their situation will attract new donors. They held their Half Half Half Half Half Marathon around Jamaica Pond last Thursday, and their Books for Breakfast fund-raiser is scheduled for May 7.
In these turbulent times, when our nation’s values are under siege, 826 Boston reminds us that we all have a role to play. Now it’s your turn to act — in solidarity. Support and donate to 826 Boston and others that are on the front lines of this growing resistance.
Shirley Leung is a Business columnist. She can be reached at shirley.leung@globe.com.