At the end of last year, nonprofits were facing a wave of program cuts, layoffs, and closures as inflation, declining donations, and other forces hit budgets. Now the Trump administration is aggressively cutting federal funding that many organizations rely on.

What is the toll on the sector as a whole?

The next federal tally of nonprofit jobs — the most accurate measure — won’t be released until 2029, so the Chronicle of Philanthropy has launched a layoff tracker to offer a snapshot of the field’s financial health.

In our latest estimate, we find that from January 20 to June 30, the nonprofit sector lost at least 22,757 full-time jobs, including 3,130 in June — largely in the IRS categories of health care (2,364 positions) and employment (594 positions.

However, the WARN databases that provide state-based layoff information — and much of the data reported here — are not consistently updated, with the result that the Chronicle’s numbers are likely an undercount. For example, in the category of health care, WCH Service Bureau, a company specializing in medical billing and health provider credentialing, recently reported that from January through June of this year 15,000 to 20,000 positions have been eliminated at 51 hospitals and health systems — numbers well beyond what have been reported in the WARN databases. This means that the number of nonprofit layoffs over the past five months could easily be 40,000 or perhaps higher.

Experts continue to say the impact of federal grant cuts to nonprofits will have cascading effects, and now that President Trump’s tax bill has been passed, nonprofits will face new money woes. A recent analysis by Candid found that if government funding were to cease completely, over 14,000 nonprofits across the country would likely exhaust their reserves within three months, putting an estimated 2.8 million jobs at risk.

Among the large nonprofit layoffs in June:

  • Providence Health & Services, a Renton, Wash.-based 51-hospital system, cut 600 full-time positions across seven states. Erik Wexler, Providence’s president, cited a “perfect storm” facing health care — including proposed federal cuts to Medicare and Medicaid, ongoing denials and delayed payments from commercial insurers, higher labor costs, inflation, and potential tariffs.
  • Sharp HealthCare, a San Diego health-care provider, announced layoffs of 315 employees due to increasing labor costs, “state-mandated” expenditures and inadequate reimbursement from Medicare, Medi-Cal, and commercial payers, according to its CEO Chris Howard. The announcement came one week after UC San Diego Health cut 230 positions across its clinics and hospitals.
  • Eckerd Connects, a Clearwater, Fla.-based nonprofit that assists youth and adults to attain employment, laid off 47 people in Florida, 115 in Iowa, 77 in Texas, and 240 in Georgia, largely in response to the Trump administration’s decision to cut a federal jobs program for young people.

A report by the Urban Institute found that in more than 95 percent of U.S. counties, public charities receive government grants — and without those grants, totaling $267 billion in 2021, most nonprofits would be unable to cover their expenses. In 2022, the last year for which national statistics were available, those nonprofits accounted for 12.8 million jobs, or 9.9 percent of private-sector employment.

Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump is pictured at an election night watch party, Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2024, in West Palm Beach, Fla.
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The dollar amount of the Trump administration’s post-January 20 defunding of the nonprofit sector is still unknown. There is also currently no way to use federal data to understand — in real time — the scope or magnitude of nonprofit layoffs. That is because the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes employment data on the nonprofit sector only every five years — unlike for-profit sectors, for which the BLS reports quarterly data.

As mentioned, WARN databases (short for Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act) — are maintained by individual states. Large nonprofits and other employers (those with at least 100 full-time employees) are required to submit to the databases 60 days’ advance written notice of a layoff affecting 50 or more employees and/or one-third of the total work force. But the WARN databases have significantly different update patterns, reporting requirements, and enforcement mechanisms. Some states provide public updates monthly; others only every three months; and two — Arkansas and Wyoming — do not publish WARN data at all.

Our estimate of nonprofit layoffs is culled from WARN databases in 48 states and news reports. The Chronicle of Philanthropy’s estimate is a significant undercount, as many layoffs are not reported by news media, and small nonprofits (those with fewer than 100 full-time employees) are not required to submit their reduced staff numbers to the WARN databases.

Note the following about the data visualized in the charts above:

  • These are rough estimates of layoffs and furloughs announced from January 20 to June30. In some cases, where an exact number is unknown, entries reflect a conservative estimate of layoffs.
  • The months listed reflect when an organization made a WARN filing or when the layoffs became public in news reports. Since layoffs often occur in waves, some layoffs in a given entry may have taken place before or after the month reported.
  • WARN notices report anticipated layoffs, which may not happen in the time frame or to the extent planned and do not reflect buyouts, furloughs, or voluntary departures.
  • Organizations are sorted based on their purpose in accordance with the Internal Revenue Service’s activity codes. Human service organizations, for example, provide a range of social services and include nonprofits like Catholic Charities. International, foreign affairs, and national security organizations refer to a broad array of organizations dedicated to global issues and development. The latter layoffs have been highly affected by the closure of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Nonprofit categories with relatively few documented layoffs — like religion-related groups and legal organizations — have been categorized as “Other.”
  • Detailed information about which nonprofits have been affected are in the following sheets:

Going forward, the Chronicle of Philanthropy will update this tracker every other month or quarterly.

If you would like to report a past or future layoff at your nonprofit — or correct the details of a layoff listed here — please complete this form.