Oregon Business Q4 2025

what programs to fund and who keeps their job. The organization is fighting back, and court victory this summer means the organization gets to hang on to federal funds for now. But they know the fight isn’t over. On the evening of April 2, the National Endowment of the Humanities (NEH) announced it would cancel all recurring contracts with the nation’s 56 state and regional humanities councils. Here in Oregon, the state humanities council — also known as Oregon Humanities — lost nearly half its budget overnight. The White House — acting through the newly created Department of Government Efficiency and billionaire presidential advisor Elon Musk—explained the cancellation of NEH grants as a repurposing of funds “in furtherance of the president’s agenda.” Given Trump’s rhetoric during the 2024 presidential campaign, Oregon Humanities executive director Adam Davis had expected some kind of run-in with the budget knife when Trump took office in January. But, as Davis reminded himself, Congress had already approved his organization’s 2025 funding in March as part of a continuing resolution. That turned out not to matter. “A late-night message saying, ‘Your funding for the rest of the year is eliminated’ was a lot to adjust to,” Davis says. Oregon Humanities entered the year with 14 full-time employees, six contract employees and an annual budget of $2.5 million. After losing its entire share of federal revenue, it’s been reduced to 10 fulltime workers. Its board of directors is now mulling three separate financial outlooks, the rosiest of which has next year’s budget down $500,000. The organization sued the federal government over the cut, and while a federal judge ruled in its favor, the victory was a moral one if not a material one, with Judge Michael H. Simon agreeing that the president abused his powers and effectively freezing the funding. Whatever the number, what it means for Oregon Humanities is less; less money for partner organizations in rural parts of the state — libraries, schools, museums and municipalities. Fewer events around the state. Fewer connections made, fewer stories told. One surviving effort is the ongoing Beyond 250 project, which includes work with libraries around the state to host public conversations like the one Greathouse facilitated in Jacksonville. Meant to get Americans talking about shared values like equality and justice, the “250” refers to the years since the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and the “Beyond” stands for the “next” 250 years. Following the cancellation of $65 million to U.S. humanities councils — an amount representing less than 1% of the overall federal budget of $6.76 trillion — the NEH released updated funding priorities. The agency now says it’s “especially interested” in projects on the nation’s semiquincentennial, and that “As per longstanding agency policy, NEH-supported projects must not promote a particular political, religious or ideological point of view and must not engage in political or social advocacy.” In April The New York Times reported that $34 million in NEH funds from cancelled grants would fund a statuary park Trump announced in 2020, intended to honor figures such as the Wright Brothers, Lauren Bacall and Kobe Bryant. Human Interest Oregon Humanities was formed in 1971, but can trace its origins to the 1960s, when a coalition of educational organizations — reacting to increased investment in hard sciences as the Cold War and the space race ramped up — called on Congress to establish a permanent funding source for the humanities. The National Endowment for the Humanities was born under the auspices of then-President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society, which dramatically increased funding for social programs of all kinds. In 1971 Oregon was among the first six states to form its own humanities “volunteer council” to distribute NEH funds locally. By the end of the decade, all 50 states would have a citizen-led council. In the years since, Oregon Humanities has built up a roster of programming that includes the long-running Conversation Project and Consider This events; print publications like its eponymous magazine; and podcasts like the Detour (“exploring tough questions about how we live together”) and This Place (Oregonians spotlighting their hometowns). And as a grantmaker for the NEH, it’s distributed $16 million to rural organizations since 2020, from the High Desert Museum to the city of Astoria to the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation. In his fight against Trump’s cuts, Davis has taken on a more public-facing role, making his case with national outlets like The New York Times and National Public Radio. And though he’s led hundreds of community conversations on politics, and trained thousands of meeting facilitators in civil discourse over a three-decade career, Davis admits he was “tested” in a recent interview with conservative Portland-based radio host Lars Larson. Davis had never before listened to Larson’s show, which is carried on more than 100 affiliates (“Giving you the right information on the left coast”). Davis started by telling Larson about his organization’s mission, its role as grantmaker and the conversations around the state that get neighbors talking about issues that matter to them. “Don’t take this the wrong way. But all the things you just mentioned, we do on this show every day, and it doesn’t take any government money at all,” Larson said. “Why should the government be funding it?” Davis had been listening to Larson’s show prior to his segment, a first for him. “As I listen to your show,” Davis replied. “I hear a tremendous amount of distrust for JASON E. KAPLAN Adam Davis, executive director of Oregon Humanities 34

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