The Dictatorship
After US foreign aid cuts, private donors gave more than $125M to keep programs going
NEW YORK (AP) — When the Trump administration froze foreign assistance overnight, urgent efforts began to figure out how to continue critical aid programs that could be funded by private donors.
Multiple groups launched fundraisers in February and eventually, these emergency funds mobilized more than $125 million within eight months, a sum that while not nearly enough, was more than the organizers had ever imagined possible.
In those early days, even with needs piling upwealthy donors and private foundations grappled with how to respond. Of the thousands of programs the U.S. funded abroad, which ones could be saved and which would have the biggest impact if they continued?
“We were fortunate enough to be in connection with and communication with some very strategic donors who understood quickly that the right answer for them was actually an answer for the field,” said Sasha Gallant, who led a team at the U.S. Agency for International Development that specialized in identifying programs that were both cost effective and impactful.
Working outside of business hours or after they’d been fired, members of Gallant’s team and employees of USAID’s chief economist’s office pulled together a list that eventually included 80 programs they recommended to private donors. In September, Project Resource Optimization, as their effort came to be called, announced all of the programs had been funded, with more than $110 million mobilized in charitable grants. Other emergency funds raised at least an additional $15 million.
Those funds are just the most visible that private donors mobilized in response to the unprecedented withdrawal of U.S. foreign aidwhich totaled $64 billion in 2023, the last year with comprehensive figures available. It’s possible private foundations and individual donors gave much more, but those gifts won’t be reported for many months.
For the Trump administration, the closure of USAID was a cause for celebration. In July, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the agency had little to show for itself since the end of the Cold War.
“Development objectives have rarely been met, instability has often worsened, and anti-American sentiment has only grown,” Rubio said in a statement.
Going forward, Rubio said the State Department will focus on providing trade and investment, not aid, and will negotiate agreements directly with countries, minimizing the involvement of nonprofits and contractors.
Some new donors were motivated by the emergency
Some private donations came from foundations, who decided to grant out more this year than they had planned and were willing to do so because they trusted PRO’s analysis, Gallant said. For example, the grantmaker GiveWell said it gave out $34 million to directly respond to the aid cuts, including $1.9 million to a program recommended by PRO.
Annie, right, and her husband Jacob Ma-Weaver are photographed in San Francisco, Tuesday, Oct. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez)
Annie, right, and her husband Jacob Ma-Weaver are photographed in San Francisco, Tuesday, Oct. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez)
Others were new donors, like Jacob and Annie Ma-Weaver, a San Francisco-based couple in their late-thirties who, through their work at a hedge fund and a major tech company respectively, had earned enough that they planned to eventually give away significant sums. Jacob Ma-Weaver said the U.S. aid cuts caused needless deaths and were shocking, but he also saw in the moment a chance to make a big difference.
“It was an opportunity for us and one that I think motivated us to accelerate our lifetime giving plans, which were very vague and amorphous, into something tangible that we could do right now,” he said.
The Ma-Weavers gave more than $1 million to projects selected by PRO and decided to speak publicly about their giving to encourage others to join them.
“It’s actually very uncomfortable in our society —maybe it shouldn’t be — to tell the world that you’re giving away money,” Jacob Ma-Weaver said. “There’s almost this embarrassment of riches about it, quite literally.”
Private donors could not support whole USAID programs
The funds that PRO mobilized did not backfill USAID’s grants dollar for dollar. Instead, PRO’s team worked with the implementing organizations to pare down their budgets to only the most essential parts of the most impactful projects.
For example, Helen Keller Intl ran multiple USAID-funded programs providing nutrition and treatment for neglected tropical diseases. All of those programs were eventually terminated, taking away almost a third of Helen Keller’s overall revenue.
Shawn Baker, an executive vice president at Helen Keller, said as soon as it became clear that the U.S. funding was not coming back, they started to triage their programming. When PRO contacted them, he said they were able to provide a much smaller budget for private funders. Instead of the $7 million annual budget for a nutrition program in Nigeria, they proposed $1.5 million to keep it running.
Another nonprofit, Village Enterprise, received $1.3 million through PRO to continue an antipoverty program in Rwanda that helps people start small businesses. But they were also able to raise $2 million from their own donors through a special fundraising appeal and drew on an unrestricted $7 million gift from billionaire and author MacKenzie Scott that they’d received in 2023. The flexible funding allowed them to sustain their most essential programming during what CEO Dianne Calvi called seven months of uncertainty.
That many organizations managed to hold on and keep programs running, even after significant funding cuts, was a surprise to the researchers at PRO. Since February, the small staff supporting PRO have extended their commitment to the project one month at a time, expecting that either donations would dry up or projects would no longer be viable.
“That time that we were able to buy has been absolutely invaluable in our ability to reach more people who are interested in stepping in,” said Rob Rosenbaum, the team lead at PRO and a former USAID employee. He said they have taken a lot of pride in mobilizing donors who have not previously given to these causes.
“To be able to convince somebody who might otherwise not spend this money at all or sit on it to move it into this field right now, that is the most important dollar that we can move,” he said.
Other donors may wait to see what is next
Dean Karlan, former USAID chief economist, poses at his home, Friday, Sept. 19, 2025, in Evanston, Ill. (AP Photo/Matt Marton)
Dean Karlan, former USAID chief economist, poses at his home, Friday, Sept. 19, 2025, in Evanston, Ill. (AP Photo/Matt Marton)
Not all private donors were eager to jump into the chasm created by the U.S. foreign aid cuts, which happened without any “rhyme or reason,” said Dean Karlan, the chief economist at USAID when the Trump administration took over in January.
Despite the extraordinary mobilization of resources by some private funders, Karlan said, “You have to realize there’s also a fair amount of reluctance, rightly so, to clean up a mess that creates a moral hazard problem.”
The uncertainty about what the U.S. will fund going forward is likely to continue for some time. The emergency funds offered a short term response from interested private funders, many of whom are now trying to support the development of whatever comes next.
For Karlan, who is now a professor of economics at Northwestern University, it is painful to see the consequences of the aid cuts on recipient populations. He also resents the attacks on the motivations of aid workers in general.
Nonetheless, he said many in the field want to see the administration rebuild a system that is efficient and targeted. But Karlan said, he hasn’t yet seen any steps, “that give us a glimpse of how serious they’re going to be in terms of actually spending money effectively.”
Smaller donors also responded
Other emergency funds used a different approach than Project Resource Optimization to respond to frozen foreign assistance.
The group, Unlock Aid, which advocated for major reforms to the U.S. Agency for International Development before the cuts, l aunched their Foreign Aid Bridge Fund in mid-February and closed it at the end of April after raising $2 million from 400 donors and foundations. Their fund accepted applications while prioritizing frontline groups that had diverse revenue sources. They closed the fund after donations slowed and it became clear that the U.S. funding freeze would become a funding cut.
Two other groups, Founders Pledge and The Life You Can Save, launched a joint Rapid Response Fund that raised $13 million. Their fund did not accept applications but worked closely with PRO to fund some of the programs they had identified. PRO also directed smaller donors to give through the Rapid Response Fund, which had the infrastructure to take both small and large gifts. In all, 1,300 individuals gave to the Rapid Response Fund, the groups said.
Katrina Sill, the global health and development lead at Founders Pledge, said most of the 13 grants the fund made went to programs that benefit children.
“This is a time to not forget [that] a very small amount of money can make an enormous impact,” she said.
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Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran again launched drone and missile attacks targeting Bahrainand Kuwaiton Sunday following new U.S. airstrikes against the Islamic Republic, and threatened a “complete halt” in negotiations to end the warif Washington continues its attacks.
Efforts to reopen the Strait of Hormuzwithout Iran’s oversight has sparked days of crossfire. A multinational maritime body overseen by the U.S. Navy said Saturday it would expand a route near Omanfor inbound and outbound traffic.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on Sunday reiterated the claim that Tehran must govern the strait to the Persian Gulfthat once carried a fifth of the world’s oil and natural gas.
“Any attempt to establish new or separate arrangements from those currently being carried out by the Islamic Republic of Iran will only lead to further complications, delay the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and increase the level of tension,” Araghchi said.
The strait has long been considered an international waterway despite its location in Iran and Oman’s territorial waters. In recent days, Iran has twice attacked vessels going through a route near the Omani side.
A Pakistani official involved in the technical talks between the U.S. and Iran told MS NOW Sunday that talks between the sides are on hold given the ongoing fighting between the two sides. The source, who did not want to be named to discuss the sensitive matter, said the U.S., Iran, Pakistan and Qatar all have representatives currently in Switzerland to restart discussions when instructed to do so.
But the Trump administration said nothing has been canceled and technical talks are on track for the coming days.
Talks include arrangements around the strait, the removal of a U.S. blockade on Iranian ports and sanctions on Iran, and the future of Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium. The two sides have 60 days from their signing of the memorandum of understanding earlier this month to work out details.
Continued conflict in Lebanon threatens the agreement, which says fighting must end on all fronts before certain issues can be discussed.
Strikes target Gulf states hosting US military
Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard claimed responsibility for the attacks in Bahrain and Kuwait.
Kuwait, which hosts a major U.S. military base, said air defenses intercepted Iranian drones and two missiles just after the U.S. strikes in Iran. There were no reports of injuries or damage.
Bahrain said the Iranian strikes damaged a residential building near the international airport and no one was killed. Bahrain is home to the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet. The damaged building was not near its headquarters.
Bahrain’s Foreign Ministry denounced what it called “a dangerous escalation that reveals that what Tehran is doing is not a passing act, nor an isolated incident, but rather a deliberate approach and a systematic pattern of repeated aggression.”
Later on Sunday, Qatar said a civilian had been killed, and another person was hurt, by shrapnel related to “military operations in the area” after a vessel didn’t return at its scheduled time on Saturday. It did not give details.
Trump accuses Iran of violating ceasefire
The U.S. military said it struck Iranian military “surveillance infrastructure, communication systems, air defense sites, drone storage facilities and minelayer capabilities” following an attack on a ship on Saturday. The Panamanian-flagged tanker Kiku carried crude oil for the state-run energy company of Qatar, another key mediator.
U.S. President Donald Trump on social media accused Iran of violating the deal and warned of a point where the U.S. may “be forced to militarily complete the job.”
“If that happens, the Islamic Republic of Iran will no longer exist!” Trump wrote.
The exchanges of fire began when an Iranian drone struck a merchant vesseloff Oman on Thursday and the U.S. military retaliated.
Ship traffic on the strait had increased over the past 72 hours, “despite the elevated threat environment,” the multinational maritime body overseen by the U.S. Navy said Sunday, adding that “U.S.-assisted commercial transits continued uninterrupted.”
It said 89 such transits had been made, below the historical average of 138 vessels a day.
Iran calls for new ‘conflict control unit’ in Lebanon
Last week, Israel and Lebanon signed a framework agreementto end the latest fighting between Israel and the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militant group, which began two days after the Iran war started when Hezbollah fired at Israel. Israel has responded with an invasion of southern Lebanon and it has said it will not withdraw until Hezbollah is disarmed.
The agreement did not include Iran or Hezbollah, which has criticized itand rejected calls to disarm.
On Sunday, Iran’s foreign minister again said the U.S. must force Israel to halt attacks and withdraw. Israel occupies around 600 square kilometers (231 square miles) in southern Lebanon, which it says it needs as a security buffer.
Sporadic clashes have continued, and Hezbollah’s leader said Saturday that the group would continue fighting until Israel withdraws from Lebanon.
Key Iranian negotiator and parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf said Sunday that a meeting of a new “conflict control unit” formed among Iran, the United States and Lebanon should meet as soon as possible, Iran’s state broadcaster reported.
Two strikes hit southern Lebanon on Sunday morning — one in Taybeh town and the other in the Nabatiyeh area, according to Lebanon’s National News Agency. There was no immediate word on casualties.
Overnight, Hezbollah militants killed an Israeli soldier in Deir Siryan village in southern Lebanon, according to Israel’s military. Hezbollah did not comment.
Israel targets a village in Syria
Israel’s military targeted Abdin village in southern Syria’s Daraa province with artillery shelling Sunday evening, Syrian state media reported. There was no immediate report of casualties.
State news agency SANA earlier reported that residents had blocked the road into the village with stones to prevent Israeli forces from entering it again after they had entered and withdrawn.
Earlier Sunday, Israel’s military said it had killed several armed men in southern Syria but gave no details. There was no statement from Syrian officials.
Israel seized control of a U.N.-patrolled buffer zone in southern Syria in December 2024 following the ouster of former Syrian President Bashar Assad in an insurgent offensive. Israeli officials initially called the move temporary, but more recently they have said they plan to occupy the zone indefinitely.
New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani has a message for political opponents using him as the new face of the Democratic Party: “Let them.”
Recent primary races in New York turned into a proxy war between progressives, including democratic socialists like Mamdani, and establishment Democratic politicians after candidates endorsed by Mamdani faced off against those endorsed by House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul. After all three of Mamdani’s endorsements bore fruit, a national spotlight shone on the mayor as a growing influence in the Democratic Party.
Asked on ABC News’ “This Week” on Sunday how he felt about Republicans making him the “poster child” for the Democratic Party, Mamdani said, “Let them. We don’t have to ask ourselves what life looks like if a socialist wins. I won last November, and over the course of these last six months, what we’ve delivered for working people are the very things we were told were impossible.”
He touted recent campaign promises he delivered on, including freezing rents for nearly one million rent-stabilized apartments, expanding free child care and filling potholes across the city.
“I think we are seeing a hunger that is not just felt by New Yorkers, but frankly by Americans from coast to coast for a new politics, one that puts working people at the heart of it,” Mamdani told ABC.
Mamdani dismissed criticism from Republicans and Democrats alike. Jeffries, who represents parts of Brooklyn and Queens, said last week that he and the mayor “agree to strongly disagree about some of his endorsements, and he’s got work to do in terms of the conversations that he’s going to have with members of Congress moving forward.” Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut said, “The effort to nationalize New York is going to fail.”
Mamdani said he’s focused on the three congressional candidates he has already endorsed: Brad LanderDarializa Avila Chevalier and Claire Valdez. But he didn’t rule out future endorsements outside of New York.
“It’s not just New York City where working people are asking themselves ‘why can’t I afford my rent, why can’t I afford my groceries, why can’t I find enough money in my pocket for childcare no matter how hard I work?,’” Mamdani said.
When asked about a recent manifesto penned by a number of moderate House Democrats and Democratic candidates, promoting capitalism over socialism, Mamdani doubled down on his vision for the party.
“I’m not interested in writing a manifesto, or frankly, in reading one,” the mayor said. “I’m interested in delivering.”
Mamdani also criticized Democrats who continue to make antagonizing Trump the center of their politics rather than working people.
“You’ve got to have something that you are not just willing to stand up for, but that you’re also willing to explain how this is relevant to working people,” he said. “And I think this just comes back to the fact that I’m leading a city that’s the wealthiest city in the wealthiest country in the history of the world. I could end the sentence there and say that life is great for 8.5 million people. But it’s also a city where one in four are living in poverty. And for far too many Americans, those contradictions have become their day to day life.”
Erum Salam is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW, with a focus on how global events and foreign policy shape U.S. politics. She previously was a breaking news reporter for The Guardian.
Despite remaining undefeated in the initial round of the World Cupthe Iran national team is going home after failing to secure enough points to advance. But they do not leave quietly.
Iran’s tumultuous journey in the World Cup has been the subject of widespread attention amid the U.S. war with Iran, with the United States being one of three countries hosting matches. The Iranian team captain, Mehdi Taremi, blamed FIFA, saying, “It’s a disaster World Cup. A disaster.”
“I mean, FIFA, they have to solve every problem here but unfortunately they could not solve it since the beginning,” Taremi said at a press conference Friday after his team drew with Egypt, knocking Iran out of the tournament.
He pointed to the team’s biggest obstacle. “We don’t have our logistics people here. They don’t have a visa,” Taremi said, adding, “We always complain about these things but no one helps. No one.”
The Trump administration denied visas to key Iranian staff and severely restricted players’ travel. The team’s base camp was moved from Arizona to Tijuana, Mexico, where it was required to return immediately after each game.
“How is it possible we always have to travel from Tijuana? We love the people in Tijuana. We love Mexico,” the Iran team captain said, but added, “It’s not fair.”
Throughout the tournament, the Football Federation of Iran lamented the number of issues, threatening to lodge a formal complaint against FIFA. Head coach Amir Ghalenoei called his team the “most oppressed” in the tournament. A few days before Iran’s final match against Egypt in Seattle on Friday, the U.S. loosened travel restrictions to allow players to enter the United States two days before the game.
“The Iran team will still be required to leave the day the match ends,” the Department of Homeland Security said ahead of the match. “The overall security measures and protocol are the same. We remain committed to providing the safest tournament possible for players, staff, and fans alike.”
Still, Iran finished Group G in third place with three points earned after drawing in its matches against Belgium, New Zealandand Egypt. Under FIFA’s new 48-team format, the top eight of third-place teams move on to the next round, but Iran narrowly fell short.
The team initially seemed poised to advance when it was tied with the same amount of points as Algeria, which scored a goal in stoppage-time against Austria Saturday night. But moments later, Austria tied the game, guaranteeing Iran’s elimination.
Off the field, tensions with Iran heightened Friday when the U.S. struck Iran despite signing a memorandum of understanding meant to halt hostilities in order to finalize a peace deal.
Erum Salam is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW, with a focus on how global events and foreign policy shape U.S. politics. She previously was a breaking news reporter for The Guardian.
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