A recent article in the once reputable New York Times (NYT) had the headline “A Year After USAID’s Death, Fired Workers Find Few Jobs and Much Loss”.
The article bemoaned the Trump administration’s elimination of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the resultant layoffs of 16,000 of the Agency’s employees plus hundreds of thousands of contractors/partners, and detailed the difficulties thirty of these workers were still facing finding new jobs.
The intent was obviously to garner reader sympathy for all those whose lives were disrupted when they were so unjustly terminated when USAID shut down. Sadly for the NYT, the article seems to have backfired.
One of the reasons for this was that one of the individuals highlighted was 57 year old Sheryl Cowan of Virginia who lost her $272,000 job last March and had recently stooped so low as to interview for a $19 per hour job in a local spice store. Ms. Cowan hadn’t worked for USAID but for a nonprofit completely dependent on USAID funds.
Sadly, many people have been experiencing challenges finding the ‘right’ job over the last several years as the economy continues to correct itself in the wake of all the over-spending that occurred during the COVID years.
Between January 2005 and March 2026, the number of unemployed Americans increased by 374,000 at the same time as only 369,000 new jobs were created.
The NYT article neglected to mention much about Ms. Cowan and the firm she worked for so I thought, for the benefit of my two readers, I would dig a little deeper. Because tax returns for nonprofit entities are publicly disclosed, it was relatively easy to find a 2024 tax return for her employer, CNFA.
CNFA has been around since 1985. The initials stands for Cultivating New Frontiers in Agriculture. Their website says that CNFA works “at the intersection of trade and agricultural development, expanding markets for farmers through private-sector-driven growth”. This means that they apparently specialize in designing and implementing sustainable, market-driven agricultural development initiatives.
They began receiving federal funds in 2003 and now provide a wide range of services to the U.S. government focused on improving agricultural productivity, strengthening market systems, and enhancing economic resilience in developing countries.
The 2024 tax return says their mission is simply “to stimulate economic growth and improve livelihoods by cultivating entrepreneurship”. No mention of agriculture there.
CNFA received $70,088.539 in grants in 2024 and $69,975,956 (99.8%) came from USAID. Ms. Cowan, in ten years there, had risen to the rank of Senior Vice President Programs, and was the sixth most highly compensated employee in 2024 earning $293,986 (not $272,00). CNFA’s president/CEO made $674,800.
The tax return shows that USAID gave CNFA $69,975,956 in 2024 and that CNFA made 13 or so grants totaling $16,940,819.
It cost CNFA $53,043,586 to facilitate and administer those $16,940,819 in grants (No waste or inefficiency there.)
CNFA provided $12,421,632 of those grants to foreign entities, the largest of which was $8,089,474 for a project to improve food security and watershed management in the Matabeleland north province of Zimbabwe. (Just fyi, in the 2024 Corruption Perceptions Index, Zimbabwe scored 21 out of 100, ranking it the 158th worst of 180 countries because of the deep-rooted public sector corruption that exists in that country. Zimbabwe’s score is among the worst in Africa.) Other international grants went to Niger and Rwanda.
Grants totaling $4,519,187 were given to US-based nonprofits to help with their activities in sub-Saharan Africa. These grants were contributed to: The Manoff Group (in DC); International Medical Corp (CA); Mercy Corps (OR); Hellen Keller International (NY); International Development Group (VA); Marketshare Associates (CO); Development Gateway (DC); and J E Austin Associates (VA).
Salaries, benefits and payments to independent contractors, $28,448,492, accounted for the largest category of expenses for CNFA, with $2,256,374 allocated to the cost of fundraising the grants CNFA received.
The tax return also shows that CNFA currently has ten offices in Russia and neighboring states, maintained by 99 employees/agents/contractors who’ve thus far overseen $3,746,979 in investments and $3,307,013 in agricultural grants. (What about sanctions on Russia?)
One curious fact, completely unrelated of course, is that over time some 367 separate political donations have been made by individuals identifying as employees of CNFA (per Federal Election Commission records), and in EVERY SINGLE INSTANCE that donation was made to a Democrat cause or candidate.
It is no surprise to either of my readers that wasteful Democrat-supported government programs, in combination with all the outright fraud that has come to light in recent months, costs U.S. taxpayers billions of dollars every year.
Am I upset that we won’t be sending millions of dollars to Zimbabwe this year? Not on your nelly.
