Green Empowerment and blueEnergy US are still negotiating the merger, which would bring blueEnergy’s U.S. assets under Green Empowerment. BlueEnergy’s France organization has signed a formal partnership with the Portland group.

The organizations say combining their work could open access to European funding and allow Green Empowerment to support projects in two additional countries. Both groups work with rural communities, including in Nicaragua, Uganda and Burkina Faso.

The plan grew from a collaboration in Uganda. Green Empowerment had been working since 2019 with communities there to provide electricity and clean water to health clinics. When the Portland organization sought to expand the work last year, U.S. foreign aid cuts were making funding harder to secure. It partnered with blueEnergy, which connected the project to a Ugandan clean-water organization and a donor in France.

“That project is moving forward right now,” Green Empowerment Executive Director Andrea Johnson said. She said the groups hope to use the collaboration as a model for attracting other funders, and have discussed similar work in Ethiopia.

Johnson said Green Empowerment, whose partners operate in 10 countries, was looking for additional funding sources to sustain its community-owned energy projects. BlueEnergy, meanwhile, needed an organization with administrative capacity to take over its U.S. operations.

The groups spent more than a year exploring the arrangement, assessing whether their missions and workplace cultures aligned and working through legal and administrative requirements. Mathias Craig, a blueEnergy co-founder who grew up in Oregon, said prior joint projects helped establish trust between the organizations.

A broader funding squeeze is prompting Oregon nonprofits to consider consolidation and other ways to share resources. Federal foreign aid was paused after President Donald Trump took office in 2025, and the U.S. Agency for International Development was formally closed that summer. Green Empowerment and blueEnergy US did not receive federal funding directly, but both worked with partners that did.

Jim White, executive director of the Nonprofits Association of Oregon, said organizations without government grants are also feeling the effects as they try to respond to needs left unmet by groups facing cuts. The association has developed workshops on strategies that include mergers and acquisitions.

White said a merger can help organizations expand their reach, but success depends on shared values, compatible work cultures and a willingness to manage complex legal and administrative work. He expects more nonprofits to pursue mergers as funding pressures continue.

Some organizations are instead sharing staff and other resources. Portland’s William Temple House, which offers low-cost counseling and operates a food pantry, has joined with peer organizations to create shared positions, according to Executive Director Graham Craft. Craft said his organization would consider a merger if it could reach more people and strengthen its financial stability.

For Green Empowerment and blueEnergy, the proposed merger is intended to preserve and extend international projects at a time when funding is less certain and demand for nonprofit services is growing.