The year 2025 proved to be a tumultuous one for local nonprofits. The entire landscape that spans entities that rely on donations, the people and organizations giving to them, and the entities facilitating those connections were forced to respond to a handful of shocks.
“There literally has been four, I would say, distinct changes that have happened in the funding community to get people rethinking [their priorities] and impacted entities like [ours] in a way that we had to reassess how we are supporting our donors and nonprofits with the kinds of changes that have been happening across the country,” says Kelvin Adams, the president and CEO of the St. Louis Community Foundation.
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Adams’ organization often plays the role of an intermediary, helping to connect philanthropically inclined people or entities with nonprofit organizations whose goals align with their own.
“In some cases, they come and they want to support a very specific area, let’s say education, but they don’t know what education entities that they want to support,” he explains. “We could do the research for them, get their information on it and make the connection.”
The Community Foundation also facilitates anonymous donations and manages some donor funds, sometimes investing them, to maximize support of local nonprofits, Adams adds. For many in the philanthropic space, any expectation that the conditions from last year would persist was quickly dashed after President Donald Trump’s inauguration in January, he says.
“You started the year believing that things were going to continue in the way that they had ended in 2024, and then there was a great conversation nationally and locally about language around diversity and equity, and everyone was concerned about how that would impact them,” Adams explains.
The powerful tornado that ripped through North St. Louis in May upended giving priorities again, with funders shifting their attention to organizations spearheading relief efforts, he says. Months later, Adams says another shift occurred when the federal government shutdown in October and November brought attention to organizations that could help individuals who rely on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
It all meant nonprofits, funders, and organizations like the Community Foundation were continually reassessing their own priorities to triage which entities needed the most immediate support.
“It was a changing dynamic on a monthly basis, as we were getting information from the federal government around how the cuts would take place in housing, and early childhood education, and you name it,” Adams says. “The funding community was getting a lot of requests from nonprofits, and so they were trying to navigate what are the priorities based upon who’s getting cut, and how will the community overall collaborate such that those entities may not be impacted as greatly as others.”
This destabilization also meant that many nonprofits “held tight” and scaled back expanding or launching new programming around things like economic mobility, youth connections, scholarships, or job creation, in favor of being prepared to weather any additional changes in federal funding, Adams says.
“We might make some shifts or changes to address certain areas based upon what we are seeing from the cuts that are taking place at the federal level, and how it’s impacting local areas that nonprofits are supporting,” he says. “Understanding that data is key and a great driver [of our] decisions.”
He adds that the Community Foundation is still committed to advancing economic mobility and youth connections, but now it may pick up other priorities too. To that end, the Community Foundation continues to explore how best to support the “economic development transformation fund” within the St. Louis Development Corporation, which interim president and CEO Otis Williams hinted at earlier this month. The St. Louis Business Journal reported that the idea focused on a fund where private donors could contribute to development in underserved parts of the city.
Adams says conversations about the fund date back to when Williams’ predecessor, Neal Richardson, was still at the helm of SLDC, and he cautions the details are “not fully baked at this point in time in terms of what everything will look like,” though he expects housing to be a top priority, along with wealth management and job creation.
“What the question becomes, is that new housing? Is it loan loss reserves, meaning getting people at home for the very first time and reducing the interest rate? Is it renovations or those kinds of things?” he says. “I think the field is kind of wide open.”
As the specifics take shape, Adams says the Community Foundation’s role is to both align with SLDC’s priorities and find ways to make the dollars and donors it works with have the most impact. He says this is especially important given how it can take years for developers to close the financing necessary for new housing, particularly ones with affordable units earmarked.
He cautions these are relationships that take time to develop and will require patience from the broader funding community.
“Helping people understand that the bureaucracy is a slow walk is very helpful on the front end, such that people don’t get frustrated at the end,” Adams says. “I have a level of frustration as well because I like to see things get done quickly.”
