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Doing More With Less Until There's Nothing Left
- John Bost
- Apr 8
- 3 min read
I remember sitting uneasily in the aisle seat of the 13th row at the Bankhead Theater, shifting back and forth as each Mayor took the stage at Tri-Valley Nonprofit Alliance’s annual “In Conversation with Tri-Valley Mayors” event. On the surface, it might’ve seemed like I was reacting to the commentary on local issues—but the truth is, my mind was elsewhere. I was stewing over politics on a very different stage: Washington, D.C.
As I listened to the mayors speak about civic challenges—like affordable housing and funding nonprofits—my thoughts kept drifting back to a brewing partisan fight in Congress over a stop-gap spending bill known as a Continuing Resolution (CR).
These CRs are temporary fixes to keep the government running when Congress can’t pass a full budget. They’ve become a frustrating norm. In fact, according to Congress.gov, there have only been three fiscal years since 1977 without at least one CR. Some years, like 2001, saw more than 20.
From Policy to Personal
Some say CRs are cowardice—kicking the can down the road instead of doing the hard work of governing. Others argue they’re essential to prevent shutdowns. Either way, they come with real consequences.
This time, it hit close to home.
In 2024, Open Heart Kitchen (OHK)—the nonprofit I serve—was in the thick of transforming a 19,000 sq ft warehouse in East Livermore into the Open Heart Food Bank (OHFB), the Tri-Valley’s first large-scale food redistribution facility.
Selected by the Alameda County Community Food Bank as a Redistribution Organization (RDO), OHFB would increase local access to nutritious food and reduce emissions from cross-county transport.
A win for people, and for the planet.
A Federal Boost… Almost
To support operational costs, OHK partnered with the City of Livermore to apply for a federal Community Project Fund (CPF) grant—funds that members of Congress can request for local infrastructure and human service needs.
We asked for $1.3 million. We were awarded $850,000.
We were thrilled. The project had momentum. But then came the fine print: the process is quite lengthy and without guarantees that the project will be included in the appropriations bill at the end and, even if it does, the timing of seeing the money could be influenced by who controlled Congress and the White House.
Fast-forward to March 2025. As I sat listening to mayors talk about local struggles, I already knew that the Full-Year Continuing Appropriations and Extensions Act of 2025 had passed the House. If it passed the Senate, it would eliminate our grant entirely.
On March 14, it passed.
Our grant—and $16 billion in community earmarks like it—was gone - with at least $6 billion redirected to defense and immigration enforcement instead.
First Powerless, Then Angry
At first, I felt powerless. Not shocked—just deeply frustrated. We'd already raised $1.8 million and invested $1.2 million of OHK’s own funds. This wasn’t theoretical. We’d already built the thing.
Nonprofit leaders are often told we “signed up” for this. That we should just figure it out. That we’re resilient.
We are. We can. But we shouldn’t have to.
There’s supposed to be a contract here: We provide services. The government supports them.
Fragile, yes. But still a contract.
Cue the Righteous Indignation
We’re not mad that systems are complex. We’re mad that they’re rigged.
If there were no dollars for anyone, fine. But to learn that human services were cut to boost military and immigration budgets? That’s betrayal.
We're often told to raise more from individuals. As if we’re all sitting on unrestricted gold.
“I could dip into my millions of dollars of unrestricted capital to fund our programs, but I’d rather go through the government grant process, spend the money upfront, and wait months to be reimbursed—or not be reimbursed at all,” said no one ever.
Doing More with Less Isn’t Sustainable
Yes, we’ll keep going. We always do. But success with less comes at a cost:
A staff member burns out.
A client gets less than they need.
A long-term investment is put off.
That cost is real, even if it’s quiet.
The choices seem limited:
Keep serving more people with less support?
Walk away and hope our communities will figure it out?
Demand more from the elected officials who promised to show up?
Let’s Be Clear About What’s Broken
As Frederick Douglass said:
"Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will."
To be indignant in the nonprofit world is to know that people are going hungry because of a famine. To be righteously indignant is to know that some people are going hungry not because of scarcity—but because a handful of people at the top are eating twice their share.
