Date: Monday, September 15, 2025
Authors Courtney Geary and Jessie Tannenbaum
Hi! We are Courtney Geary and Jessie Tannenbaum, two democracy, rights, and governance professionals whose work at the American Bar Association Center for Global Programs (ABA CGP), was sharply impacted by abrupt cuts to US foreign assistance. The sudden cut left dozens of ABA CGP’s local partner organizations without critical operational and programmatic funds, drastically slashing the mission-driven legal and social support they provide to vulnerable and marginalized constituencies. Here we share lessons learned on how crisis program closeout can still support organizational resilience and mission fulfillment in the face of extreme challenges.
ABA CGP conducted rapid internal assessments that went beyond understanding results to collect evidence and document the harm that the chaotic funding cuts and broader ‘top-down’ development paradigms may have caused, preserving this evidence for historical record, as well as how to support resilience. In addition to our findings, we also are sharing insights from our partners Nolen Deibert, former Chief of Party of the now-closed USAID/Asia Religious and Ethnic Freedom Activity (Asia REF, an NGO consortium), and Mike Gabriel, Head of the Religious Liberty Commission at the National Christian Evangelical Alliance of Sri Lanka/Alliance Development Trust (ADT, a national CSO).
Hot tip in a crisis: look to non-traditional data sources! Non-MEL programmatic material may provide data needed to quickly assess and respond to changes to the operating environment without needing to conduct time- or resource-intensive data collection.
In the immediate aftermath of the funding freeze, we relied on existing data and information (e.g., pre-program financial and risk assessments of subaward partners) to understand the potential impact of funding loss and prioritize interventions to mitigate harm to program partners and beneficiaries during closeout. Asia REF compared subgrant budgets against activity reports to identify urgent needs and reprioritize available obligated funding. ABA CGP used pre-program risk assessments to understand potential impacts and design harm mitigation actions. Later, many partner organizations confirmed our findings that the loss of operational funds presented a major challenge even when non-US funding remained.
We designed surveys to better understand partner needs, finding that more than 97% of ABA CGP partner organizations needed both training/capacity building and non-training support. While it was challenging to meet all needs, our survey found that the largest area of need was resources for organizational sustainability, including information on funding sources, capacity support for diversifying funding, mentoring and coaching, introductions and networking help, and access to databases. Secondary areas of need included psychosocial support for staff, job-seeker support, and emergency relief.
Our two major lessons learned included:
We also have some rad resources for evaluators seeking data on US foreign aid, much of which was removed from government websites:
The materials contained herein represent the opinions of the authors and editors and should not be construed to be those of either the American Bar Association or Center for Global Programs.
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