As someone who has spent my career adjacent to—and a champion of—faith-based and government partnerships, I’ve continued to be haunted by remarks I heard at an event last spring. In the wake of dramatic reductions in federal funding for social services and foreign assistance initiated by the Trump administration in early 2025, the event focused on how faith-based organizations and those they served were impacted.
When asked whether an organization, in this case a major faith-based humanitarian organization, would partner with the U.S. government again, the then-president and CEO said they would think twice before partnering again. “The full faith and credit of the United States government as a partner has completely evaporated and will never be restored, at least not for a long, long time,” the CEO said.
And for good reason. Earlier in the event the CEO explained that the organization had lost half of its revenue in one afternoon, without warning, when the Trump administration issued stop work orders in January 2025. This is an experience familiar to many organizations that partnered with the U.S. government, and in particular, those that partnered with the now-shuttered U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).
A Long History of Collaboration Collapses Overnight
Over the last several decades, faith-based organizations have been among the federal government’s most consistent, effective, and longstanding partners in development and humanitarian assistance. In 2024, for example, faith-based organizations were among the top recipients of USAID funding—entrusted with delivering services and aid to people and communities who needed it most, on behalf of the American people.
At USAID, the Center for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, a unit dedicated to strengthening the agency’s work with faith-based partners, focused significant energy and resources into improving the experience these organizations had with the agency. USAID’s first-ever Strategic Religious Engagement Policy and a Faith-Based Partner Resource Guide underscored not only the value that the agency saw in working with faith-based organizations, but also the ways it was striving to be a better partner to faith-based organizations.
These resources and others like them were the result of decades of work by various iterations of the bipartisan Faith-Based Office to build trust with faith actors, steward relationships, and institutionalize strategic religious engagement as an important part of how the agency advanced its development and humanitarian priorities. However, with the dismantling of USAID as well as closure of the Strategic Religious Engagement Unit at the State Department and the elimination of the Religion and Peacebuilding team at the U.S. Institute of Peace, the infrastructure dedicated to building and stewarding relationships with religious actors and faith-based organizations in the contexts of development and diplomacy was largely lost.
For the last year, the Strategic Religious Engagement (SRE) Hub at the Berkley Center has worked to support the U.S. government’s capacity for SRE in the years ahead through dedicated efforts to maintain institutional memory and convene practitioners, scholars, and current and former officials to explore innovative pathways forward. This is, of course, important work. But as the SRE Hub and other colleagues in this space continue to consider and imagine different forms the future of U.S. capacity for religious engagement in foreign affairs might take, it begs the question: will faith-based organizations, particularly those working in development, humanitarian relief, and refugee resettlement, want to work with the U.S. government again?
To be sure, some faith-based organizations remain active partners on development and humanitarian efforts via the State Department and other mechanisms across the foreign affairs infrastructure. Yet for the many highly capable, highly specialized organizations that lost significant streams of revenue when contracts were terminated with little to no warning in 2025, and for those that had to close their doors entirely due to catastrophic losses in funding, what will it take to rebuild trust and partnerships?
The Long Road Towards Repair
For many faith-based organizations, what was once a relationship built on shared purpose now feels uncertain, even disposable. Current and future government officials now face a difficult but important task: to rebuild trust and work to mend relationships with faith-based actors that are, and will continue to be, critical partners in advancing U.S. diplomacy, development, and humanitarian objectives. What this will require is not yet entirely clear, but there are a few steps that can begin to shape a way forward.
- Acknowledge the Damage Done. Whether via current or future government officials, a first and important step in credibly repairing the damage done to so many faith partnerships is offering an apology. Policy perspectives or legal concerns notwithstanding, most can agree that the abrupt termination of long-standing partnerships fell far short of best practice for any contractual relationships. There was a very real human cost to the method and manner by which foreign assistance cuts were made, both for the staff of organizations that lost funding and, critically, for the individuals and communities that were recipients of what was often life-saving assistance.
- Design the Future with Faith Partners. Any efforts to reconsider or reimagine a dedicated religious engagement presence at the State Department, at a new development agency, or elsewhere in the U.S. foreign affairs apparatus should be shaped in direct consultation with faith-based organizations. This should include organizations that have historically partnered with USAID or State about what worked well, what didn’t work, and what they would value most in a reconstituted faith-based unit. Consultations should include not only large, high-capacity faith-based organizations but also small, local, and/or nontraditional organizations that may have struggled to partner effectively with the U.S. government in the past, including those that have felt sidelined or marginalized by current or prior administrations due to their religious affiliation or identity.
- Rebuild Capacity with Intention. If and when a dedicated faith-based presence is reestablished within U.S. diplomatic and development agencies, there will be an opportunity to begin to repair relationships and rebuild an infrastructure that reflects an intentional commitment to professionalizing, resourcing, and institutionalizing SRE into diplomatic and development policy and practice. USAID was making significant strides in this direction, and the current or future administrations could build upon this work.
A longstanding distinctive of U.S. engagement in the world has been its commitment to working alongside faith-based actors to advance shared goals. This commitment has been built on evidence that faith-based organizations have often cultivated the trust of local communities over many decades, affording them a level of expertise and moral credibility that makes them uniquely effective, influential, and sustainable partners. A norm of collaboration and momentum in recent years to integrate and institutionalize SRE in many ways set the U.S. apart on the global stage and also served as a model for peer donor agencies interested in more strategically engaging religion.
However, that distinctiveness is now in jeopardy as dedicated SRE infrastructure has largely been lost and the trust that those units cultivated with many faith partners has eroded. As global challenges and humanitarian crises persist, religious actors will remain on the front lines of efforts to alleviate suffering and empower communities around the world. Now the burden rests on current and future public servants to begin the long but important work of repairing relationships with organizations, rebuilding trust, and reestablishing the U.S. as a reliable partner in this work.
