This 2SLGBTQ+ crisis line has been gutted under Trump. Then one call changed everything

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As It Happens6:33The Trevor Project, gutted under Trump, receives surprise $45M US donation

An unexpected gift is giving a U.S. charity new hope in turbulent times. 

The Trevor Project, a 2SLGBTQ+ non-profit, has seen a spike in calls to its youth crisis hotlines under Donald Trump’s current presidency. At the same time, the administration slashed the organization's funding and, with it, its capacity to field those calls.

Then a phone call from author MacKenzie Scott's philanthropic organization changed everything.

Scott — a billionaire philanthropist whose fortune largely comes from her ex-husband, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos — has given the Trevor Project $45 million US ($62.2 million Cdn).

“We almost fell out of our chairs,” Janson Wu, the organization's senior vice-president of philanthropy, told As It Happens host Nil Kӧksal. 

The no-strings donation is almost the size of the non-profit’s $47-million annual budget, and nearly double the $25 million in federal funding it has lost under Trump.

“It was a wonderful surprise,” Wu said. 

Critical timing

It couldn’t have come at a more critical moment, Wu said.

In July, the White House stopped funding the 988 National Suicide & Crisis Lifeline’s “Press 3” option for bisexual, gay and gender non-conforming young people, which the Trevor Project helped staff. 

At the time, Rachel Cauley, a spokesperson for the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, told NBC News the administration would not “grant taxpayer money to a chat service where children are encouraged to embrace radical gender ideology by ‘counselors’ without consent or knowledge of their parents.”

The Trevor Project continues to run an independent hotline in the U.S. that reaches about 250,000 young people annually, but it served another 250,000 callers through Press 3. 

“We, unfortunately, had to decrease our capacity to answer the calls,” Wu said. 

“What this gift, first and foremost, will allow us to do is to fortify our crisis services to ensure that we have the capacity to answer that call and ensure that there's a caring and competent counsellor on the other end of the line when a young person reaches out to us.”

Those calls, he says, are coming in hard and fast.

Wu says the Trevor Project saw a 700 per cent increase in calls after Trump’s inauguration in 2025, and continues to see spikes “every time there is a new attack.”

For example, he says, they saw an increased volume of calls after this week’s U.S. Supreme Court case challenging state bans on transgender women and girls competing in female school sports.

"We know that young people are paying attention and their mental health is suffering given the political rhetoric and the political attacks against our community,” Wu said.

Big-time donor

The surprise donation came by way of Scott’s philanthropy organization, Yield Giving, which gave $7 billion US to non-profits in 2025.  

Scott is known for giving massive, unrestricted gifts to non-profits. She previously gave The Trevor Project $6 million US in 2020.

With the exception of an open call in 2023, she does not ask for project proposals nor accept applications.

Despite the size of her gifts, which often exceed the recipient organization’s annual budget, research from the U.S. non-profit Center for Effective Philanthropy, found the vast majority of beneficiaries managed the windfalls responsibly and saw long-term benefits.

Elisha Smith Arrillaga, vice-president of research at the Center for Effective Philanthropy, said that's likely because of the vigorous vetting that Scott's team, the members of which are largely unknown, does before giving gifts.

Wu says The Trevor Project is well aware of Scott’s vetting process, and takes her team’s trust very seriously. 

“One of the things that her team really makes sure to convey is that Ms. Scott's intention with these transformational gifts is really for long-term impact and planning,” he said.

“We'll be taking the next several months to really think through what is the best use of this incredible investment. How can it sustain our organization and our life-saving mission, not just for the next months or even years, but for generations to come?”

The Trevor Project has faced financial and organization challenges in the past.

The nonprofit's board removed a controversial CEO in 2022 after several years of rapid growth led to internal strife. It has since gone through a period of downsizing and layoffs.

Thirty-nine per cent of 2SLGBTQ+ youth seriously consider suicide, according to the Trevor Project's own research.

Wu says calls that come into their hotline are “heartbreaking.”

When he’s feeling overwhelmed, Wu says he reminds himself of the progress that’s been made in the field of 2SLGBTQ+ rights during his lifetime.

“When I kind of zoom out a little bit, you can see that steady progress towards greater inclusion, greater compassion, greater justice. But for the young people who haven't been on this planet for as long, it can be a lot harder to have that perspective,” he said.

“That's why I think this mission and this work is so important, because of the vulnerability of the young people.”