BEST OF 2025 - Nonprofits
It was a year of change across the nonprofit community in the Diamond Region this past year. One story encapsulated that change better than any other.
By Martin Davis
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
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The Independent Sector is the third leg of American society, and in 2025 that leg was shaken by forces that include a changing funding relationship between the government and nonprofits, increased pressure on civil society to serve a growing number of fiscally challenged people, and the changing ways that people think about and engage in personal giving.
The Fredericksburg Regional Food Bank, an organization of more than 200 partners that together feed 51,000 people last year, has been on the frontlines throughout the year of these changes. In February we wrote about a much-anticipated update allowing the food bank to make more fresh foods available. Excitement gave way to worry, however, as threats in March that the federal government would threaten SNAP benefits elevated concerns about how this would grow the population the food bank serves. The worries deepened in April with the government temporarily cut supplies of food the organization depends on. Those moves brought both Rep. Eugene Vindman and Sen. Tim Kaine to the food bank in June to better understand the problem. The tensions reached a boiling point in October when the government made good on its threat to greatly restrict SNAP before a court reversed the claw back in funding. The battle is far from over, however, and the Advance will be closely covering what happens.
The region’s leading nonprofit dedicated to protecting the Rappahannock was also affected by the changes in government funding. In March, FOR lost some $2 million in government funding. Fortunately, in December two companies involved in constructing data centers in our region awarded FOR $1 million, easing somewhat the loss of funds.
Any one of these aforementioned stories could have been the story of the year in the Diamond, but it was the sudden shuddering of the Rappahannock United Way in March that sent shockwaves through the nonprofit sector.
Our story that broke the news of the closing, and analysis of the forces that brought it about were the Advance’s Nonprofit Stories of the Year 2025.
Rappahannock United Way to Close
By Adele Uphaus
Closure ends 85 years of service to the region.
Read the full story
SPECIAL REPORT: Rappahannock Area United Way Closure
By Martin Davis
While some were shocked by the announcement, others pointed to the changing ways in which people give as a possible reason for Wednesday’s sudden announcement.
Read the full story
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The FXBG Advance cuts through the talking points to deliver both incisive and informative news about the issues, people, and organizations that daily affect your life. And we do it in a multi-partisan format that has no equal in this region. Over the past year, our reporting was:
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