This story is part of Atlanta Civic Circle’s ongoing reporting from our Community Impact Survey, which is gathering firsthand accounts from people across metro Atlanta on how federal actions are affecting them.
The sweeping wave of federal funding cuts and policy changes has pushed the Latino Community Fund Georgia — and the 41 organizations it serves — to the edge of a financial cliff.
Federal actions have created a “perfect storm” of terminated grants, heightened scrutiny of groups serving immigrants, and shrinking public and private support, says Gilda “Gigi” Pedraza, the nonprofit’s founder and executive director.
The Latino Community Fund is bracing for a loss of nearly half a million dollars in federal funding alone, which would eliminate pay for nine staff members and gut longstanding services for Latino Georgians, Pedraza says. “That means people,” she adds, both the group’s employees and the working families they serve.
The funding cuts are already taking effect. Pedraza said a federal grant to develop a hate-crime prevention curriculum for K-12 schools in DeKalb and Gwinnett Counties, in partnership with law enforcement, childrens’ healthcare providers, and community groups, was abruptly canceled.
“We still have thousands of dollars pending reimbursement,” she said. “And we don’t know how to pay some of the bills that we have pending.”
The Latino Community Fund supports 41 member organizations with both direct services and grants to promote civic participation, legislative advocacy, and the health and well-being of Georgia’s Latino community – often through statewide coalitions like Unidos and Latinos for Democracy. That community is significant: Latinos made up 11.2% of metro Atlanta’s population in 2023, according to the Metro Atlanta Chamber.
Pedraza says the member groups “are Latino-led, Latino-governed, and Latino-serving, because we have always believed that we are uniquely prepared to support our community from a linguistic and cultural perspective.”
The $500,000 federal funding loss over two years would slash the Latino Community Fund’s $2.7 million annual budget by about 10% per year, Pedraza says.
And the fraught political climate for groups that serve working-class Latinos, including immigrants, is having ripple effects on its local funding. City of Atlanta grants have dried up for food security and services to navigate healthcare and public benefits, along with other local grants for programs like cultural competency training for county public health boards.
Pedraza attributes the mounting grant losses to the broader “slew of policy changes” at the federal level, which she says have sparked a hostile climate toward organizations that offer any services to immigrants. “It’s the federal cuts… it is the policies, and, quite frankly, some of the bullying that’s going on,” she says. “It is a perfect storm.”
Heightened federal scrutiny has forced the Latino Community Fund to undergo legal reviews, revise website content, and clarify eligibility language for the populations it serves — administrative tasks that consume valuable time and energy, Pedraza says.
This uncertain environment, she adds, has had a “chilling effect” on potential funders, both philanthropies and municipal agencies. Some are backing away from programs deemed politically sensitive, viewing them as potential liabilities. “We have been divested in, and now on top of it, we become a liability, or unpopular,” she says.
In a recent grant cycle, the Latino Community Fund distributed $300,000 to its member organizations. Now, sustaining that support is becoming increasingly difficult. “We thought we could navigate it, like we did COVID. But it’s worse,” she says.
Pedraza compares this moment to the early 2000s, when anti-immigrant legislation and declining philanthropic support drove national Latino organizations out of Georgia. Right now, her nonprofit must make similarly difficult decisions around cutting staff hours, eliminating positions, and scaling back programs that many vulnerable communities rely on.
Still, the group remains steadfast in its mission. “Our name is Latino Community Fund, right?” Pedraza said. “We are not running away from serving the community we have historically served.”
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