When it comes to federal funding for public safety, DOGE was nothing short of an earthquake, whose aftershocks continue to reverberate nationwide. DOGE was presumably [Hmm. —lambert] the driving force behind the abrupt termination of 373 Justice Department grants this past April, canceling awards initially worth $820 million in support for violence reduction programs, victim services and other state and local public safety efforts.
One of the most destructive consequences was the elimination of grants valued at $95 million in funding for intermediary organizations: larger, more experienced nonprofits that bridge the gap to federal support for smaller community groups and government agencies. These intermediaries deliver microgrants and hands-on support that help rural police departments, tribal justice agencies and community-based nonprofits overcome the complex barriers of federal grantmaking and build organizational capacity over the long term. When DOGE pulled the plug, it was not only the intermediaries that suffered losses, but the smallest, least resourced communities in America.
We built these programs deliberately—as detailed in a new Council on Criminal Justice report—expanding federal support to grassroots nonprofits and rural jurisdictions that had long been shut out of federal funding and resources.
This was not a partisan experiment. For decades, Republicans and Democrats alike have decried the inaccessibility of federal funding to smaller and more rural organizations. The George W. Bush administration called the grantmaking process “overwhelming and off-putting to smaller-scale organizations;” the Biden White House found it rife with “persistent barriers” for under-resourced communities; in an Executive Order, President Trump condemned it as a “notoriously complex” system that rewards applicants that can afford legal and technical experts.
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