By Madeleine Graham
AmeriCorps, the federal agency behind a network of national service programs that address critical community needs like academic achievement, fighting poverty, and preparing for disasters, saw a substantial funding cut last year. Today, local programs are navigating the changed landscape and trying to remain optimistic as they rebuild what was lost.
According to a July 2025 Charles Stewart Mott Foundation report, Flint lost 66 AmeriCorps service members after the Trump administration cut roughly $400 million, or 41% of the agency’s budget in late April 2025.
Though that represents a huge loss for the Flint community, some programs survived even if organizers and funders had to abruptly halt programming as they worked to understand the federal cut’s local implications.
For example, United Way of Genesee County (UWGC) had to pause its grants to AmeriCorps programming completely in 2025, though UWGC leaders are hopeful to see the return of 18 AmeriCorps service members, now called “volunteers,” in the fall of 2026.
Jamie Gaskin, CEO of UWGC, explained that his organization had been managing reimbursable grants for AmeriCorps groups in the area before the federal funding cuts of last spring/summer.
“We currently don’t have any of the money,” indicated Gaskin of the usual funding UWGC received to support AmeriCorps before last year, “but there is a signed contract for the award of $400,000 that we hope will be honored.”
Jamie-Lee Venable, UWGC’s Vice President of Operations, explained a bit further.
“For government fiscal year 2024, the State of Michigan received $15.5 million for AmeriCorps programming. The State of Michigan awarded grants to 20 agencies of which we (UWGC) were a part. The grant was just over $400,000 to support 18 volunteers in 10 different nonprofits,” Veneable shared over email. “For FY 2025 the State of Michigan received $18 million and awarded that to 24 agencies. The UWGC was one of the awardees but chose to not activate the grant until Congress passed an appropriation in January 2026, and we are now moving forward with our FY 2025 grant.”
Though UWGC has a plan, Venable noted that states are still currently applying for FY26 funds, and “we have no idea what that allocation will be for the October 1, 2026 program year.”
As to how this strange funding structure happened, Gaskin explained that, too, was a bit complicated.
A lot of the AmeriCorps program was cut about a year ago when the federal government was rolling out the Department of Government Efficiency. There were significant and immediate cuts, though some of those cuts were later reversed. At the time, Gaskin noted, the federal government seemingly arbitrarily cut grants to states, and about 80% of employees of AmeriCorps at the federal level were let go or buyouts occurred.
For those programs that UWGC supports in Flint, the cuts impacted 18 AmeriCorps members who worked in “Educare, Asbury CDC, Flint & Genesee Literacy Network, Involved Dad, American Red Cross of Flint, Hurley Food FARMacy, Urban Renaissance Center, Pediatric Public Health Initiative, [and the] Genesee County Land Bank,” according to Lindsay Crawford, Development Coordinator of the United Way.
“In 2024/2025 the Department of Government Efficiency terminated AmeriCorps contracts across the country, including ours,” Venable explained further. “That contract was set to expire at the end of 2025. AmeriCorps was then removed from the FY26 Congressional budget until a few months ago when it was funded through the federal appropriation process.”
Venable noted that the United Way is now starting its AmeriCorps programming back after receiving a contract from AmeriCorps through the Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity. She said that contract will run through March 2027, and the “United Way currently has a request for funding submitted that would begin in October 2026 if awarded.”
What all of this boils down to, UWGC leaders offered, is that there has been a tremendous amount of uncertainty surrounding AmeriCorps programs and volunteers over the last year.
Months after cuts were announced and stop work orders had been issued, there was a court order to restore some of AmeriCorps’ funding, but many programs had been shut down already. Now, Gaskin said, it feels like UWGC is starting programs back up from scratch, but “we are anxiously optimistic that things will work for AmeriCorps programs this year.”.
As for the Michigan Education Corps (MEC), an AmeriCorps program that serves students aged three through grade eight, Holly Windram of Hope Network said over email that “there were two significant funding disruptions in 2025, one at the federal level and one at the state level” for MEC.
At the federal level, she noted that when funding was unexpectedly terminated mid-year in 2025, tutors who served through AmeriCorps were impacted immediately by disruptions to staffing in the schools.
“We acted quickly to maintain services, and nearly 100% of tutors continued supporting students through the end of the school year. Federal funding was later released, but the disruption created significant instability,” Windram said.
At the state level, Windram shared that short notice was given on October 6, 2025, “that Michigan Education Corps was not included in the FY26 State School Aid Budget, resulting in a loss of approximately $5,000,000 in anticipated funding.”
There was a true impact on the schools and tutors, she said, adding that the funding “was not gone” but instead shifted to “other sources in the State School Aid budget going directly to schools and districts.”
Overall, Windram explained, “MEC began the year serving 66 schools in 24 districts and are currently serving 36 schools in 14 districts. The number of tutors decreased from 157 tutors to 84 statewide.”
And while federal funding has resumed, state funding has not been restored to MEC, so, she said, “MEC continues to operate in a more constrained environment while actively diversifying funding sources.”
While Windram noted that MEC does not operate with a Flint-specific budget to compare year-on-year changes at the city level, she did offer that, “the specific impact to partners in Flint are the same as those experienced state-wide; sustaining services in Flint now requires greater local investment and has constrained program size.”
She also shared that MEC’s staffing was “modestly higher” before the budget reductions experienced last year. She said MEC has served at the International Academy of Flint from the 2020-21 school year to the present, with 11 tutors serving 133 students over that timeframe. In the current 2025-26 school year, one tutor is serving 38 students.
Another organization in Flint that employs AmeriCorps volunteers is the Crim Fitness Foundation, led by Program Manager, Josh Miller.
“The Crim Sports Corps program supports the fundamental youth sports programming offered during Thrive On afterschool programming. Unfortunately, the Crim Sports program is the only active AmeriCorps program housed in Flint,” explained Miller. “There are a few organizations who have members (volunteers) from national programs, but they are only sub-sites.”
In 2025, the Crim Fitness Foundation had ten AmeriCorps volunteers, Miller confirmed, but the organization is down to five AmeriCorps volunteers this fiscal year.
Miller explained that the decrease in volunteers was actually not due to a loss in funding but because of the stop work order that had come along with the cuts in 2025. He said because the AmeriCorps grants were also released later than expected last year, the Crim requested a smaller amount of funding for the 25/26 year since the grant year had been shortened.
“Our 26/27 grant request is back to the 10 members we have requested previously,” he shared, noting that the Crim’s program budget now consists of $147,215 from the grant itself with a match in private donations.
“We are actively expanding our programs into other districts, and anticipate having more members next year, so we do not expect any difficulties,” explained Miller.
“I am an AmeriCorps alum myself, so I understand the value and challenges of being an AmeriCorps member,” he added. “I hope that even with the continued challenges the program faces, we are still able to continue to offer programs that are dedicated to serving the local community.”
Editor’s Note: This article first appeared in East Village Magazine’s June 2026 issue.
