To our amazing AmeriCorps colleagues considering whether to accept FY25 funding:
Let’s not write our own ending.
While Congress appropriated full FY25 funding for AmeriCorps, the White House budget office may be withholding a significant portion (to the tune of $196 million)—leaving programs and commissions across the country anxiously waiting for clarity, allocations, and formal award notices.
But some programs—if awarded funds—are planning to sit this year out. To wait and see. To pause, reflect, and maybe return later—if AmeriCorps still exists.
That instinct makes 100% sense, of course. April’s cuts were brutal. They shocked the system, broke trust, and continue to hurt good people doing essential work.
But here’s the thing:
That response is exactly what detractors are counting on. That’s what they want us to do.
When programs leave appropriated funds on the table, it becomes easy to say:
“See? No one’s using this. Why are we funding it?”
And that’s how public good disappears—not in one big blow, but slowly, through decisions that feel cautious, rational… safe.
It’s called enshittification: starving something of support until it collapses, then pointing to the collapse as proof it was never worth saving. It’s a tactic—honed in the tech world—and now it’s being used on AmeriCorps.
So let’s be clear.
AmeriCorps does matter. Your work matters.
Your work matters!
Especially in these darkest of moments when “leaders” work to whiplash our brains multiple times a day.
It matters in classrooms. In clinics. In shelters. On trails. In the lives of children and adults who still need us to show up.
AmeriCorps has long been our society’s highly effective, efficient “Plan B” for underfunded education, public health, conservation, disaster response, and other social good efforts. But there is no “Plan C.” Without AmeriCorps — without your program — we usher a return of children without mentors, homebound seniors without company, veterans without higher education opportunities, communities without disaster relief services.
If your board or leadership is wondering what to do—
If the funding is offered, take it.
Board members, if you’re reading this—
Take the funding. Keep strengthening your community.
You’re not accepting the grant for the reports, the compliance burdens,
the extra Zoom calls, or the stress that might come with it.
You’re accepting the funding you’ve earned—
to show up for your community,
and to show what commitment looks like in a moment designed to test it.
Your AmeriCorps program is essential.
Your AmeriCorps program is essential!
Let’s not write the ending they want.
Let’s write the next chapter of getting things done in America.
Love,
The America Learns Team