While your local nonprofits are being (barely) propped up, there are serious fundraising droughts across the nation — especially at the hyper-local level. You decide to step in and ambitiously set up a national organization. It’s surprisingly easy to capitalize on funding opportunities when Trump does outrageous things — like announce he’s going to dismantle the EPA. (He doesn’t, but it doesn’t stop you from using the threat for fundraising.)
The real challenge is figuring out how to be a national regranting body to local groups. You do your best to vet local groups and to create an accountability structure that people can see — but you sacrifice speed for precision. You decide to abandon the model of month-long or year-long granting processes and move at lightning speed. This leads to mistakes and some money is poorly used. But, in the chaos of the times, your work is understood and generally appreciated. It means you can move fast. When climate-change-fueled fires burn through your town and when right-wing militia burn down Black businesses, you are able to move fast and decisively.
Over the next year, you see small political changes around you. But it feels like barely a dent amidst the national scene. Despite lower poll numbers, Trump continues filling the government with his loyalists. The courts eventually approve his Schedule F reclassification — 50,000 government workers are now being systematically replaced by Trump loyalists. Bureaucratic fights rage across many institutions. Trump installs judges across the country who gerrymander election maps in multiple states to give Republicans long-term power. But your heart tears as you see the language of fear and violence growing: immigrant communities terrified by right-wing militia patrols, increased violence against peaceful protestors, attacks on emissions standards, and exaggerated calls for political arrests.
