In late September, the East Portland-based youth mentorship program HOLLA got a much-needed financial boost when it received its first grant disbursement from the Portland Children’s Levy.

The influx of funding comes as nonprofits like HOLLA have been scrambling, both in Oregon and nationally, to make ends meet after the Trump administration cut a number of longstanding funding sources. But it almost didn’t happen. 

In early June, after organizations like HOLLA had been notified of their selection to receive grants from the Portland Children’s Levy (PCL), the Portland City Council made an unprecedented decision: voting to reject $70.9 million in grants the PCL allocation committee had awarded for the coming fiscal year and instead extending funding to the program’s current large grantees for another year. 

The Children’s Levy is a lifeline for BIPOC organizations as federal leaders strip funding for equity initiatives. The City Council's decision sparked a ferocious backlash from organizations who were counting on the money and didn't understand why the Council was suddenly taking issue with the way the grants had been awarded at the end of an arduous application process. 

Then, three weeks later, the Council changed its mind—voting unanimously to reverse its original vote and approve the $71 million PCL funding package. 

The Council’s decision to change course spoke to a notable willingness to admit its mistakes, even as questions linger about how PCL will move forward from an unexpectedly fractious summer. 

“They paused everything to really self-correct, and I was thankful for that, how that all went down—because we weren’t expecting that,” Eric Knox, executive director of HOLLA, said. “I just thought we were going to go in there with our signs and make a lot of noise and put a little bit of pressure on them.”

PCL, which was first approved by voters 23 years ago and has been renewed multiple times since, has long dispensed grants aimed at supporting vulnerable children in Portland—with a particular emphasis on addressing racial disparities in childhood outcomes. 

PCL awards grants to non-profit organizations working in six different program areas: after school programming, child abuse prevention and intervention, early childhood, foster care, hunger relief, and mentoring. 

The grants typically range from $75,000 to $850,000, and the application process is competitive: In the spring, the allocation committee reviewed numerous applications for funding from a variety of organizations and recommended that 94 programs from 64 different organizations receive grants for the three-year period beginning on July 1. 

Those organizations were notified in April that they were being recommended for grants that would, in many cases, inject hundreds of thousands of dollars into their budgets in the coming years. 

Nike Greene, the founder and CEO of Triple Threat Mentoring, said her understanding was that the vote to approve the grants was a “formality.” 

But at the June 4 meeting, it was not a formality at all. The council ultimately voted 7-5 to reject the PCL grants, with the Council’s six-member progressive block joining Councilor Loretta Smith in voting against the PCL Allocation Committee’s recommendations. 

Smith suggested there were “systemic problems” with the way in which the PCL allocation committee scored applications, highlighting the fact that several established, Black-led organizations lost out on funding despite a purported emphasis on racial equity. 

But the process by which the proposed grants were rejected raised eyebrows in the nonprofit community. Applicants who were recommended for awards felt blindsided.

Sprinavasa Turner, executive director of Experience Life Science Outdoors, told City Council that “after the recommendations came out, the rules changed,” and that a “politically-connected organization stepped in late and changed the conversation.” 

The council’s initial decision irked not only the leaders of organizations who were expecting to receive funding, but also members of the allocation committee—who noted in a June 18 public meeting and subsequent testimony that their work was informed by equity concerns and that the vast majority of culturally-specific organizations that applied for funding were recommended. 

Councilor Steve Novick, who introduced the resolution to reverse the initial funding decision, said during discussion of the resolution that the Council had an opportunity to address their frustration. 

“One impact of doing this would be to restore trust among the members of the numerous citizen advisory bodies, which saw this body summarily reject the recommendations of dozens of volunteers on several different advisory bodies to the Children’s Levy,” Novick said. 

Some councilors were particularly contrite about the consequences of the initial remand vote. 

“I’m just going to be honest—I’m learning, I make mistakes, I reserve the right to change my mind in response to new information,” Councilor Tiffany Komaya Lane said. “I’m always going to work to be accountable and act in alignment with my values.”

The Council’s decision to approve the funding recommendations is already having a significant impact: Knox said HOLLA was able to hire a dedicated queer student mentor who will work on supporting students in East Portland who are preparing to either apply to college or begin careers. 

The current economic climate for social justice-oriented nonprofits like HOLLA makes the Council’s decision to approve the grant funding even more important than it might have been otherwise. 

“Everybody's hemorrhaging right now,” Knox said. “I was just talking to another nonprofit leader and said, it’s a blood sport out there right now trying to get money and keep your doors open.”

Knox said his program will receive its first reimbursement from PCL grant money at the end of the month. 

Despite the unanimous vote to adopt the allocation committee’s recommendations, City Council is still seeking answers from PCL staff. 

In addition to their vote to restore the funding, the Council adopted an amendment introduced by Koyama Lane directing the allocation committee to report back to Council on how it plans to address concerns raised about racial equity and the integrity of the evaluation process. 

The ordinance adopted by the Council specifically directs the allocation committee to assess whether its programs serve a “majority of the intended demographic population” and discuss how to assess and value “the extent to which an applicant’s leadership and board composition reflect the populations they intend to serve.” 

Angelita Morillo, one of the council members who initially voted to reject the funding proposals, said during the re-vote that there are still “structural issues” with PCL’s funding process that must be addressed moving forward. 

“What our office has also heard is that there are new organizations that are doing really wonderful things, and there are legacy organizations that have built trust in the community for a very long time, and that we need to find ways to not pit them against one another,” Morillo said. 

Yuxing Zheng, the communications and outreach director at PCL, wrote in an email to the Mercury that it is standard for PCL staff to conduct a full review at the conclusion of its funding rounds anyway and that the organization is actively gathering feedback from volunteer application reviews, applicants, and advisory body members. 

PCL staff aim to consult with allocation committee members in the fall before submitting its next report to City Council, which will be available on the program’s website. 

Zheng added that while PCL is working on compiling its report on the recent funding cycle, there is not yet any guarantee that they will have the chance to apply their findings to a future funding cycle. 

“Any future large grant funding round would depend on whether voters renew the levy in the future, and it’s unknown at this point if/when another large grant funding round would occur,” Zheng wrote. 

For now, the Council’s decision to restore funding has allayed the frustrations of many of the nonprofit leaders who testified before the re-vote.  

“It's good to be in partnership with the city,” Knox said. “That’s the exciting part—we’re hoping this is a long-term relationship with them.”