In early 2025, nonprofits across the Greater Washington, DC region faced a perfect storm: sudden funding losses, rising demand for services, and deep uncertainty. A July survey of more than 240 local nonprofits found 38% had lost federal funding. Yet, far more, 61%, reported being affected by policy changes overall, showing the impact goes well beyond federal grant dollars. In response, the Greater Washington Community Foundation launched the Community Resilience Initiative to help nonprofits continue their work without disruption. From the outset, the initiative was anchored in flexibility, collaboration, and data. Based on insights from the survey and ongoing conversations with nonprofits, three things became clear early on.

Child pover­ty in the U.S. has surged, near­ly tripling from 5% in 2021 to 13% in 2024. This dra­mat­ic increase fol­lows the expi­ra­tion of pan­dem­ic-era eco­nom­ic poli­cies and ris­ing prices that have strained fam­i­ly bud­gets nation­wide. How­ev­er, a new report from the Annie E. Casey Foun­da­tion under­scores the pro­found impact of pub­lic poli­cies and pro­grams, demon­strat­ing their capac­i­ty to cut child pover­ty in half.