A legal organization chaired by Democratic election attorney Marc Elias and funded by a number of major left-wing donor groups helped the National Council of Nonprofits (NCN) to temporarily block the Trump administration’s newly-announced freeze on certain types of taxpayer-funded federal grants.
Democracy Forward, Elias’ organization, represented NCN in a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia that prompted a Biden-appointed judge on Tuesday to temporarily stop the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) from freezing outlays of certain federal grants. Democracy Forward has received millions from major left-wing donor organizations in the past, and the group was an active opponent of the first Trump administration, taking it to court on a number of policy issues with an eye toward stymying the Trump agenda.
“This reckless action by the administration would be catastrophic for nonprofit organizations and the people and communities they serve,” Diane Yentel, chief executive of the National Council of Nonprofits. “From pausing research on cures for childhood cancer to halting housing and food assistance, shuttering domestic violence and homeless shelters, and closing suicide hotlines, the impact of even a short pause in funding could be devastating and cost lives. This order must be halted immediately before such avoidable harm is done.”
Democracy Forward – NCN Complaint Against WHOMB by Nick Pope on Scribd
Notably, Yentel has frequently bashed President Donald Trump and his policy agenda on X over the years, including one December 2020 post in which she remarked that “chaos, drama and disregard for the desperate needs of the American people, to the bitter end” were hallmarks of the first Trump term and a separate July 2020 post in which she criticized “Trump’s vile racism” and “cruel and bigoted anti-trans policy.” The NCN, meanwhile, boasts that it “purposefully and tangibly” works to “embed diversity, equity, and inclusion throughout our organization” at nearly every level of its operation.
Other organizations that joined NCN in filing the lawsuit include the American Public Health Association, the Main Street Alliance and SAGE, an organization that advocates for LGBT seniors.
The Trump OMB’s memo to agencies announcing the pause states that “to the extent permissible under applicable law, Federal agencies must temporarily pause all activities related to obligation or disbursement of all Federal financial assistance, and other relevant agency activities that may be implicated by the executive orders, including, but not limited to, financial assistance for foreign aid, nongovernmental organizations, DEI, woke gender ideology, and the green new deal.” The White House further clarified that “any program that provides direct benefits to Americans is explicitly excluded from the pause like student loans or the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
However, U.S. District Judge Loren L. AliKhan blocked the Trump administration freeze on Tuesday, staying the policy until at least Monday evening, at which point there will be another hearing to determine whether a longer stay is in order, according to Newsweek. Former President Joe Biden appointed AliKhan to her current position in December 2023.
Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, characterized the stay as a “sigh of relief” in her organization’s fight against the “Trump Administration’s callous attempt to wholesale shutter federal assistance and grant programs that people across this country rely on” in a Tuesday statement.
OMB Memo by Nick Pope on Scribd
Elias — last in the headlines in November 2024 as he tried and failed to get deficient ballots counted in the Pennsylvania Senate race won by freshman Republican Dave McCormick — chairs Democracy Forward’s board, where former Biden White House chief of staff Ron Klain also has a seat. Democracy Forward prepared for a possible second Trump presidency for years ahead of Election Day 2024 by putting together a “multimillion-dollar war chest” and identifying potential priority issues to sue the government over, according to The New York Times.
Democracy Forward was established in 2017, and it has received grants from major left-wing organizations in the years since.
For example, the Sandler Foundation — a let-of-center nonprofit that has supported numerous other liberal groups like the Center for American Progress — has granted Democracy Forward a whopping $16 million since its founding, tax records show. The Center for American Progress itself gave Democracy Forward $1 million in 2017.
Democracy Forward landed a $10,000 grant from the Hopewell Fund in 2022, according to tax filings. The Hopewell Fund is one leg of the liberal dark money network run by Arabella Advisors, a for-profit consultancy established by Clinton administration alum Eric Kessler that manages the Hopewell Fund and several other nonprofits. Democracy Forward also received nearly $6,000 from the Tides Foundation in 2023, the same year it received $50,000 from As You Sow, a nonprofit that pushes corporations to adopt left-of-center corporate policies.
“Democracy Forward’s lawsuit is essentially a declaration that the executive branch must give away the taxpayers money to nonprofits even when there is no legislative mandate for it. An absurd argument like that could only come from a group chaired by Marc Elias, a Democratic super lawyer who spent the last months of 2024 dithering away taxpayer money on a Pennsylvania recount that everybody knew was hopeless,” Parker Thayer, an investigative researcher for the Capital Research Center, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “Americans ought not let the guise of ‘charity’ distract them from the fact that there is an enormous amount of waste hidden within government grants for every manner of absurdity. Having reviewed billions of dollars of federal grants to nonprofits myself, I agree wholeheartedly that the funding freeze was a necessary step.”
Democracy Forward and NCN did not respond immediately to requests for comment.
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