(photo from ncronline.org)
Catholic Relief Services is staring down the line at extreme funding and staff cuts of as much as 50% due to the dismemberment of U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the freezing of other federal funds. USAID makes up roughly half of the organization’s $1.5 billion budget.
Layoffs have begun as CRS has been forced to begin shutting down programs funded by USAID, as first reported by The National Catholic Register. The publication obtained access to an internal memo sent by CRS President and CEO Sean Callahan.
“We anticipate that we will be a much smaller overall organization by the end of this fiscal year,” Callahan wrote in the email.
USAID has been the initial target of the Trump Administration’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) headed by Elon Musk. The funding freeze has been the subject of three temporary restraining orders in two federal court districts, Washington, D.C. and Rhode Island.
A new executive order issued last week ordered federal agency department heads to “review all funding that agencies provide to NGOs. That comes on the heels of three temporary restraining orders in two federal court districts mandating that the directive halting federal funding for programs that were passed by Congress and signed into law, should be reversed.
“The United States Government has provided significant taxpayer dollars to Nongovernmental Organizations (NGOs), many of which are engaged in actions that actively undermine the security, prosperity, and safety of the American people. It is the policy of my Administration to stop funding NGOs that undermine the national interest,” the order read.
“I therefore direct the heads of executive departments and agencies (agencies) to review all funding that agencies provide to NGOs. The heads of agencies shall align future funding decisions with the interests of the United States and with the goals and priorities of my Administration, as expressed in executive actions; as otherwise determined in the judgment of the heads of agencies; and on the basis of applicable authorizing statutes, regulations, and terms.”
CRS officials at its headquarters in Baltimore did not respond to a request for comment.
The National Catholic Register reported that the cuts “would amount to one of the biggest blows ever to CRS, a relief group founded in 1943 by Catholic bishops in the United States to serve World War II survivors in Europe.”
According to data on the CRS website, the organization reaches more than 255 million people in 121 countries on five continents with 1,735 global partners.
Callahan said that CRS has received notifications that some projects for which it is subrecipient have already been terminated and that more are coming.
The staffing cuts and cost-saving measures would be across the board, impacting all divisions and departments of Baltimore-based CRS. Temporary furloughs would not be enough to avoid staff cuts, Callahan added in the memo.
From the 2013 to 2022 fiscal years, CRS received $4.6 billion in funding from USAID, primarily for disaster assistance, according to an August 2024 report by the Congressional Research Service, a branch of the Library of Congress, according to The National Catholic Register.
Church and faith-based organizations received less than 6% of USAID funding for nonprofit organizations, with more than half of those funds going to Catholic Relief Services, according to the Congressional Research Service.
