The award-winning founder of a nationally-celebrated Chapel Hill-Carrboro nonprofit vowed to “fight” against the recent termination of the organization’s federal grant funding over its equity goals.
Hope Renovations — which offers pre-apprenticeship trade training to women and underemployed demographics to grow the workforce — shared a newsletter to its supporters Monday night saying the U.S. Department of Labor recently cancelled $300,000 in grant funding as part of President Donald Trump’s administration’s ongoing federal cuts. The termination letter listed Hope Renovation’s explicit goals of increasing participation of underrepresented communities, addressing hiring discrimination and women of color making up more than half of their graduates in its grant application among the department’s reasonings for the rescission.
CEO Nora El-Khouri Spencer, who started the group in 2019, wrote that the labor department specifically said the nonprofit’s mission no longer aligned with the administration’s approach to diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility.
“For five years, we worked to land the Department of Labor’s Women in Apprenticeships and Non-Traditional Occupations (WANTO) grant,” Spencer said. “It was a large, impactful grant that was helping us grow our program. But now, like our fellow grantees, we are left wondering how to fill a gap that represents one-third of our program budget and that threatens our very existence.”
Hope Renovations earned the $713,000 WANTO grant from the U.S. Labor Department under President Joe Biden’s administration in the fall of 2023, which Spencer described as a “game-changer” for the nonprofit. The funding allowed it to partner with Durham Technical and Wake Technical community colleges to introduce its students to the training program and expand Hope’s reach. It also provided weekly stipends for those going through the training to help pay for basic expenses while doing the intensive program. Spencer wrote on Monday that the grant represented training for more than 180 future tradespeople and 28,000 hours of labor offered to local trade employers through Hope Renovations’ Career Catalyst internships.
Since starting its training program in 2020, Hope Renovations has helped dozens of women and gender fluid community members graduate with apprenticeship certificates to set them up for jobs in various trades, like construction, electrical work, carpentry and plumbing. Additionally, the nonprofit’s trainees repair and restore homes to help elder community members remain in their residences — part of an aging-in-place program where people can sign up for quarterly, semi-annual and annual visits from Hope Renovations teams to perform maintenance. Using that experience, their skills and Hope’s industry connections, more than 88% of participants of the training program have gone on to work in the trades.
For its work, Hope Renovations has received a variety of donations and support on the local level while Spencer has received national recognition from CNN, the National Association of Home Builders, the Drew Barrymore Show, AARP, and AdWeek. In May 2024, then-U.S. Labor Secretary Julie Su visited Hope Renovation’s workshop in Carrboro as part of tour of North Carolina to see how the WANTO grant was being put to use.
Hope Renovation’s leadership team and community partners pose for a photo with U.S. Labor Secretary Julie Su during a visit to the nonprofit’s workshop on May 16, 2024. (Photo by Brighton McConnell/Chapel Hill Media Group.)
Describing the funding termination as “infuriating,” Spencer said Hope’s leadership team plans to fight against the decision under the belief that Trump’s administration “did not have the legal right to cancel our grant.” She added that the nonprofit’s leaders believe progress and equity are not partisan, while efforts to expand the workforce while boosting community members’ confidence and skills are also critical to the trade industries’ needs.
“We believe that no matter which side of the aisle they are on, most people agree that everyone deserves good jobs that can sustain their families,” read Spencer’s message. “Thankfully, Hope has other grant funding we can access to cover our operations in the short term. But this is a gap that we absolutely must fill. We cannot let these funding cuts undermine our mission and our commitment to current and future trainees.”
To solicit donations and further draw attention to the change, Hope Renovations began running a pop-up message on its website. In her message, Spencer also said the nonprofit plans to share ways to help on social media and encouraged supporters to contact their federal elected officials to criticize the termination of WANTO grants.
The federal cuts are part of Trump’s administration vowing to cut back on the U.S. government’s expenses and alleged financial waste — with much of the efforts being led by Elon Musk’s non-congressionally approved Department of Governmental Efficiency. Programs with goals and values around improving diversity, equity and inclusion are specifically targeted, aligning with Trump’s executive order banning federal support of such practices that he signed on the first full day of his administration. Some nonprofits in the Chapel Hill and Carrboro communities are already experiencing impacts to their funding, while others are bracing for long-term effects of their partners or collaborators losing funding sources.
Featured photo via Hope Renovations on Facebook.
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This is what happens when shameless, ignorant people take positions of power.
2023 financials show that out of the $1.9M in revenues, 46% of their income was spent on salaries and other wages.