Federal Charity Campaign Portal Goes Dark, 4,000 Nonprofits in Limbo

The Office of Personnel Management pulled the plug on the Combined Federal Campaign's online charity portal on March 4, stranding roughly 4,000 nonprofits that depend on workplace giving from federal employees.

The CFC has funneled more than $8.7 billion to charities since President Kennedy created it in 1961. Last year's campaign raised over $66 million, with the average pledge climbing to nearly $1,000. For many smaller and rural organizations, the annual CFC check — ranging from $100,000 to $700,000 — represents a lifeline that no single fundraising event can replace.

Undisbursed Donations Remain in Question

The 2025 campaign closed on January 31, but disbursement of pledged funds had not been completed when OPM moved to decommission the portal. "The portal needs to remain open until all 2025 campaign contributions are dispersed," Ann Hollingsworth of the Nonprofit Alliance said in a statement. Without the portal, charities lose access to historical donation data and any pending pledge processing.

This is not the first attempt. OPM issued a Stop Work Order in late August 2025, only to reverse it under pressure from the nonprofit sector in early September. The March decommissioning appears to have proceeded without the same level of advance notice.

What Small Nonprofits Should Do Now

Diane Yentel of the National Council of Nonprofits called the CFC "an important source of funding for many smaller and rural nonprofits" that lack the donor base to absorb a sudden loss.

Organizations that participated in the 2025 campaign should take three steps immediately. First, download all historical CFC data before access disappears entirely. Second, contact the CFC Program Office directly to verify the status of pending disbursements. Third, begin building an individual giving strategy that does not depend on a single federal channel.

The broader pattern is hard to ignore: federal infrastructure that nonprofits have relied on for decades is being dismantled or defunded at a pace that leaves little room for adjustment. Organizations that diversified their revenue years ago are weathering this moment better than those that treated CFC income as guaranteed.

For nonprofits evaluating alternative federal and foundation funding streams, tools like Granted can surface active opportunities that match an organization's mission — a useful hedge when a legacy revenue source vanishes overnight. In-depth analysis of the CFC's future and federal workplace giving trends is available on the Granted blog.