Samwise · Nonprofits & Charities
Saturday Deep Dive
June 20, 2026 · Four in-depth dispatches from the sector
★ Saturday Deep Dive
As the United States approaches its 250th anniversary, this week’s stories ask the same question from four different angles: what does it actually take to build cooperative power, sustain community care, and hold on to democratic promise when institutions fail? From an 1891 cotton pickers’ strike to a Pittsburgh watershed nonprofit declining federal money it no longer trusts, the thread runs clear — communities building what government wouldn’t, and paying a steep price for doing it well.
Accountability
One Year After AmeriCorps Cuts, What Changed?
PublicSource · June 19, 2026
One year after the Trump administration gutted AmeriCorps — eliminating nearly all staff and canceling hundreds of millions in grants — the organizations that depended on corps members are still rebuilding, and the program’s future remains uncertain. A court ordered funding restored after states filed suit, but the legal lifeline has not translated into operational clarity. Public Allies Pittsburgh relaunched after a hiatus and plans to field 18 full-time and 13 part-time corps members in 2026, while Literacy Pittsburgh — which relied on AmeriCorps for tutoring since the Clinton era — saw its cohort decimated overnight. Some organizations are moving forward; others are not. Tinker’s Creek Watershed Partners declined reinstated funding outright, citing broken trust with the federal agency. Meanwhile, the president’s fiscal year 2026 budget still calls for eliminating AmeriCorps entirely, leaving nonprofits suspended between court-ordered restoration and a White House that views the program as expendable.
The Hidden 100-Year Legacy of Latina Labor Activism in Texas
Nonprofit Quarterly · June 18, 2026 · Alysse Rodriguez
Jovita Idar, Emma Tenayuca, and Cecilia Rodríguez — three Tejana activists spanning a century of struggle — offer a forgotten blueprint for today’s nonprofits confronting authoritarianism and economic inequality. Writing for NPQ, Alysse Rodriguez traces a clear thread: all three women recognized that race, gender, and class were interconnected tools of oppression, and all three built organizations to fight back. Idar founded La Liga Femenil Mexicanista in 1911 in response to the lynching of 14-year-old Antonio Gómez in Thorndale, Texas, using journalism at La Crónica to organize mutual aid and resist Texas Ranger harassment. Tenayuca led the 1938 Pecan-Shellers Strike when the Southern Pecan Shelling Company cut wages from six to five cents per pound — workers walked out and ultimately won. Rodríguez co-founded La Mujer Obrera in El Paso in 1981, building a holistic model around seven community pillars: employment, education, health, housing, nourishment, peace, and political liberty.
Philanthropy
Juneteenth Demands a Tax and Care System That Liberates Black Women
Nonprofit Quarterly · June 17, 2026 · Anne Price & Jhumpa Bhattacharya (Maven Collaborative)
“Juneteenth should be a day for truth-telling, not just celebration,” write Anne Price and Jhumpa Bhattacharya of the Maven Collaborative. A new report from their organization finds that Black women describe care as communal, reciprocal, intergenerational, and liberatory — not a private burden. The authors argue the US tax code rewards wealth over work, penalizing caregiving and leaving Black women holding communities together without commensurate support. They highlight concrete models: New Mexico voters in 2022 approved directing the Land Grant Permanent Fund toward early childhood education while eliminating co-pays for childcare, making it effectively universal. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani recently taxed billionaires’ second homes and opened free childcare seats for city workers — returning as much as $20,000 per year to working families. The expanded Child Tax Credit, which temporarily halved child poverty, expired while permanent tax cuts for the wealthy were locked in.
A Crushed 1891 Strike by Black Farmer Cooperatives Holds Keys to Economic Justice Today
Nonprofit Quarterly · June 16, 2026 · Shivank Pandey
In 1886, sixteen Black men gathered on a farm in Houston County, Texas and founded the Colored Farmers’ National Alliance and Cooperative Union (CFNACU). Within five years, it claimed 1.2 million members across the South — building cooperatives, credit unions, newspapers, and schools — making it likely the largest Black organization in US history. In 1891, the CFNACU organized a cotton pickers’ strike demanding wages rise from 50 cents to $1 per hundred pounds. State violence crushed it: at least 15 people were killed in Lee County, Arkansas, nine taken from police custody and lynched. Writing for NPQ, Shivank Pandey draws lessons for today: build layered institutions rather than single strategies; recognize that successful organizing makes you a target; and reckon honestly with power differences in multiracial coalitions. The CFNACU’s demands — farmer subsidies, direct Senate elections, full civil rights — became law decades later through other movements.
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