Following a judge’s order reinstating federal funding for AmeriCorps, leaders at Bay Area community organizations expressed hope that they will receive the grants they rely on to carry out their volunteer-assisted missions, but it’s tempered by uncertainty.
They waited this week for news about whether the court fight would continue after Thursday’s court ruling and how funding would be restored — even if the Trump administration chose not to appeal.
AmeriCorps “serves everyone — rich, poor, rural, urban. They support everyone in every community,” said Adolfo Rivera, director of national service programs for Bay Area Community Resources, the organization that oversees four AmeriCorps programs in the Bay Area. “All these communities, at a moment’s notice, lost that service.”
At the end of April, more than 560 AmeriCorps volunteers who worked in education, disaster response and climate programs through BACR — which supervises a majority of the region’s volunteers — were told the government was terminating their roles. They lost their jobs, health care and parts of educational scholarships. Most were sent home three months ahead of schedule.
The ruling Thursday, which only applies to the 24 states that joined a lawsuit to prevent the loss of grants, means that hundreds of millions of dollars in funding must be restored.
California Volunteers, the state office that oversees AmeriCorps California, is in the process of reviewing the court order and “assessing next steps,” communications director Katie Vavao said.
Rivera said that the “big question” now is whether the organizations will receive their funding, but logistical complications will be part of their work going forward as well.
“It’s still unclear what this means for the field and the impact it has and what it can reverse,” Rivera said. “Nobody knows the road map, so it’s unknown what the outcome will be or what it even means to reinstate.”
The Department of Government Efficiency placed national-level staff members on leave in April and shut down AmeriCorp’s National Civilian Community Corps, one of four branches of the organization. Days later, DOGE instructed the agency to cut $400 million in grants that had been promised to organizations across the country.
California and a coalition of other states then filed the lawsuit against the Trump administration April 29, contending the action blocked the states’ abilities to support AmeriCorps programs within their jurisdictions.
“Common sense has prevailed over cruelty,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a statement. “The court is rightly siding with volunteers and service workers.”
Federal cuts of more than $60.5 million impacted 5,656 volunteer slots across California at more than 1,800 service locations, Vavao said. Of those volunteers, 847 were attached to 28 programs in the Bay Area. Those Bay Area programs lost nearly $11 million in federal funding.
Bita Nazarian, executive director of 826 Valencia, a San Francisco-based nonprofit that helps under-resourced children develop their writing skills, and relies on the work of 15 AmeriCorps volunteers, said that the court ruling is a “step in the right direction.” They still do not know the lingering impact of the funding cuts.
“It’s just continued uncertainty but with a dash of hope sprinkled in there,” she said.
At the time of the funding cuts, Bay Area Community Resources had volunteers who were working not only across the Bay Area, but also in Los Angeles, where they were providing assistance to victims of the fires that burned through the city earlier this year.
“People don’t do this for the money,” Rivera said. “They do it because they care about their neighbor. They care about making a difference.”
Beyond the immediate uncertainties of what the court’s ruling means for AmeriCorps, organizations are preparing for next year’s challenges. That includes rebuilding credibility with potential volunteers who may be worried that future funding could be taken away at a moment’s notice, Rivera said. He also expressed concern that some agencies may choose not to participate due to the uncertainty.
“It’s hard to give assurances because, right now, everything is up in the air,” Rivera said. “We don’t know what tomorrow is going to bring, and so we have to stay optimistic but work cautiously.”
Organizations that rely on funding from AmeriCorps are still worried about the next round of grants, some of which have been held up without any announcements, while others have “very positive signs,” Rivera said. Funding for AmeriCorps was already appropriated for the 2025-2026 federal budget.
826 Valencia was able to use other funding to hire its AmeriCorps volunteers on as staff members, Nazarian said. They have created contingency plans for next year, depending on whether AmeriCorps volunteers will be available.
“We’re spending all this time spinning our wheels around unknowns,” she said. “We are already trying to do a lot with little in the nonprofit sector, and then these decisions just make it near impossible to do what our communities need.”