WASHINGTON — Nonprofits across the nation are grappling with the Trump administration’s decision to terminate a swath of Justice Department grants this week, as critics say the ripple effects are sure to harm public safety.

Organizations and their supporters have slammed the move and report that grant funding was terminated immediately, a development that comes as uncertainty persists over how the new administration might reshape the department’s grant-making programs.

Activating Change, a national nonprofit that works with people with disabilities, lost $2.15 million that had been awarded through five grants, said Nancy Smith, the organization’s executive director. Those terminations represented about 40% of the organization’s annual budget, she said.

The grant terminations have rocked the nonprofit. “We laid off 11 staff members. We started with a staff of 26 and we are now a staff of 15,” Smith said.

The Health Alliance for Violence Intervention, which facilitates hospital-based violence intervention programs for victims of violent crime, said it’s losing millions of dollars in funding because of two DOJ grant termination letters it received. Both terminations were effective immediately.

At least 55 entities it works with have received termination letters, representing more than $115 million in funding cuts, said Fatimah Loren Dreier, the organization’s executive director.

“The ripple effects are vast, affecting not only direct recipients but entire local ecosystems of care,” she said in a written statement. “This decision removes millions in critical funding from the local safety infrastructure.”

The Justice Department cancellations stretch across hundreds of grants in different programs, according to media reports. Reuters has reported several of the grants have been restored after the terminations were made public.

There are signs there could be further funding cuts down the line. Attorney General Pam Bondi, in a post on social media Wednesday, said the department has begun cutting millions of dollars “in wasteful grants.”

Bondi said the “greatest hits” included a study on “police departments’ LGBTQ liaison services” and “working with incarcerated transgender individuals providing gender affirming care to including housing in gender appropriate facilities.”

“More to come,” she said in the post.

The grant cancellations dovetail with an aggressive effort from the Trump administration to cut federal funding, slashes that have at times been targeted at government spending opposed by conservatives. Some moves to cut funding are also being challenged in courts.

Amy Solomon, who during the Biden administration led the Office of Justice Programs, the department’s largest grant-making agency, said the public should expect a new administration to reflect its priorities in future-oriented policies and budgets.

But cutting off existing grants midstream is entirely out of line with past practices, Solomon said.

Congress funded these department programs, she said, and the agency made commitments to fund specific efforts based on competitive applications.

“These programs are at risk of shuttering, and services are going to be immediately diminished, and I think it puts the safety of our communities at risk,” said Solomon, now a senior fellow at the Council on Criminal Justice.

Smith, who leads Activating Change, said the grant cancellations will mean fewer options and longer wait times for people with disabilities. One of the grants terminated allowed the organization to provide free American Sign Language interpretation services to victim service agencies nationwide.

“This has real and immediate consequences,” she said.

One termination notice, sent to a separate organization and viewed by CQ Roll Call, said the organization’s award “demonstrates that it no longer effectuates Department priorities.”

The notice said the department had shifted its priorities on discretionary grant funding to focus on “more directly supporting certain law enforcement operations, combatting violent crime, protecting American children, and supporting American victims of trafficking and sexual assault.”

Jean Bruggeman, the executive director of Freedom Network USA, a coalition of anti-trafficking service providers and survivors, said one of their members got a notice saying an already awarded grant was being terminated immediately.

“There was no opportunity to discuss what the priorities were that had changed,” Bruggeman said.

In the U.S., the support that crime victims receive is often provided by nonprofit organizations, not the government, she said. Those resources put victims in a better position to work with law enforcement and prosecutors, she said.

“The Justice Department suggests that they need to shift their focus to supporting law enforcement,” Bruggeman said. “But the reality is (that) if you’re not supporting victims, then there’s nothing that law enforcement or prosecutors will ever be able to do.”

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