The federal AmeriCorps Agency has terminated agreements with four North Dakota organizations, including Souris Basin Planning Council in Minot, disrupting the service of 84 AmeriCorps members, according to Serve ND.

The terminations are due to a determination that the awards no longer align with agency priorities, Serve ND reported Friday. Serve ND receives money from the Corporation for National and Community Services, which funds AmeriCorps, and directs dollars to organizations in the state through subagreements.

The terminations will disrupt services, including support for vulnerable populations, early childhood education and literacy programs, Serve ND stated.

In addition to Souris Basin Planning Council (SBPC), subagreements were terminated with Cooperstown Community Activities, Sanford Foundation and South East Education Cooperative Professional Corps in North Dakota.

Unaffected are subagreements with South East Education Cooperative Reading and Math Corps, Strengthen ND and Jamestown Parks and Rec. These programs have 187 AmeriCorps members providing services in education, literacy, healthy futures and capacity building.

Briselda Hernandez, executive director for SBPC, said the organization’s Community Builder Program has consisted of the AmeriCorps program through the Serve ND and a separate AmeriCorps VISTA program.

The AmeriCorps VISTA grant was terminated, effective April 25, which SBPC received email notice of that evening, she said. On Monday, the notification came from Serve ND that the subagreement with SBPC also had been selected by AmeriCorps for termination. Hernandez said there was no indication that SBPC was out of compliance with any programs prior to the termination.

Hernandez said the termination decision was not Serve ND’s, nor did Serve ND have input into deciding which of its subagreements would be cut. She added North Dakota is more fortunate than some states, where all subagreements were terminated.

Hernandez said SBPC’s subagreement was to run until Sept. 30 of this year.

“Members serving under our agreement, we were forced to inform them that their service will be ending and they would be exited and they had to stop all service hours immediately,” Hernandez said.

Terminated AmeriCorps members will not be able to complete their service, receive stipends or receive their full education awards under the programs they were working through. However, Hernandez said, efforts are being made to see if there are options for Serve ND-funded members to be covered by other agencies whose funding was not cut.

Hernandez said the impact goes beyond the terminated members. SBPC has stopped activities associated with recruiting and placing AmeriCorps members, including plans to establish a statewide AmeriCorps VISTA position to help build capacity for the state’s food pantries.

“We also had some individuals who we were working on onboarding to these projects, and we had other organizations that we were already working with, formalizing memorandums of understanding and getting that member recruitment in time for summer period,” she said.

Stephanie Blumhagen, executive director for FAARMS, which promotes sustainable agriculture, said she will be looking for a way to retain the AmeriCorps member who had joined the team this spring in communications capacity building through SBPC.

If other AmeriCorps funding still in place isn’t available, FAARMS would consider self-funding the AmeriCorps position because of the particular value of the skills of the current member, who currently is on maternity leave, Blumhagen said. Losing access to AmeriCorps will have an impact, though, especially because FAARMS also has had other federal funding frozen, she said.

“The bottom line is it would mean a great financial strain on our organization, which is already stretched a bit,” Blumhagen said “It means stretching the dollars further and having to work twice as hard at fundraising at a time when fundraising is harder than ever.”

SBPC noted that nationally, the sudden and sweeping termination of AmeriCorps grant funding impacts more than 1,000 programs and forces more than 32, 000 AmeriCorps members and AmeriCorps Seniors volunteers to end their service early.

Last fall the North Dakota Department of Commerce had announced $208,782 in federal AmeriCorps funding for SBPC, including $107,553 in matching funds for 24 AmeriCorps members to provide capacity building for local nonprofits.

“I have long spoken with pride about the transformative impact of AmerCorps – words that come easily because they come from personal experience,” Hernandez said. “After graduating college, I served as an AmeriCorps VISTA. That year of service deepend my commitment to public service, inspiring me to pursue a master’s in public administration and dedicate my career to economic and community development in North Dakota. Imagining a future without AmeriCorps – and without the next generation of leaders it nurtures – is deeply unsettling.

“We are urging leadership to reinstate not only the funding for the existing grant period but to ensure that it continues in North Dakota in the future,” she said.