Page 3 - 2025 February report

Bobby’s Page
Executive Orders
The Johnson Scholarship Foundation has a history of strong engagement with our grantee partners. Despite our small staff and limited resources, JSF has reached out to grantees in times of uncertainty to better understand the challenges or adversity they face in their efforts to serve students. In March 2020, we contacted grantees to understand how COVID-19 impacted their students, programs, and finances. As a result of our discoveries, directors made a one-time emergency funding source available for existing grantees to help mitigate the pandemic’s adverse effects.
Recent Executive Orders on federal funding are expected to have an ongoing impact on our grantees and their work. On January 30, Bill Corwin contacted Malcolm and me to suggest we consider touching base with grantees to understand their statuses. We all agreed. On January 31, staff initiated the Executive Order Impact project. We reviewed our grant distribution plan and initiated outreach to grantees—first through a phone call, followed by an email describing our intentions. This brief survey asked grantees to share a variety of insights, including current and projected impacts to programming, timeline of potential impact, and quantifiable financial impacts. We started with organizations presumed to be the most vulnerable to these federal changes, and we’re inviting them to a 30-minute Zoom with JSF for additional insights.
We’ve found common themes in grantees’ initial feedback. The Executive Orders and uncertainty surrounding their implementation have been significantly disruptive. Even if the Orders are rescinded or overturned in court, the government’s management of these developments has concerned
educational leaders. The initial consequences are not easy to quantify. The financial impact has yet to be realized. Grantees emphasize that these Orders have required them to commit time and institutional resources to prepare for potential financial loss or disruptions. Organizational leadership, faculty, and students are on edge. Concerns for the implications of these Executive Orders are broad and sweeping. They include institutional solvency, cash flow, student enrollment, immigration status and more. Ian Record and Sherry Salway Black offered a thoughtful article covering National Tribal College Week that offers some context to the fallout for Tribal colleges.
Based on our initial conversations with grantees, we are preparing a report of our findings as an agenda item for the Grant Program Committee’s consideration in March.
Robert A. Krause
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