With the first half of our fiscal year ending soon, my focus is on ensuring the financial stability of Nellie’s and seeking out new sources of funding. It’s no surprise that like many similarly sized non-profits, Nellie’s critically relies on government grants and fundraising to maintain our programming. And between 2025 and 2026, our funding through government grants has dropped significantly, from $2,142,977 in 2025 to $1,814,983 in 2026, causing us to shut down supportive programs where funding wasn’t renewed, such as our Toronto Women In Action – Housing program and our Substance Use and Addictions program.
The reality is that if we don’t hit our fundraising targets, it impacts our operations as a whole, affecting our administrative costs to run the organization, and putting even more programs at risk. This isn’t a new issue, nor is it unique to Nellie’s — all organizations in the social services space are feeling this crunch, as we collectively hustle to secure new funding, while continuing to depend on the support of our donors and community partners.
The most challenging part of this dilemma, however, is that our fundraising efforts inadvertently pit non-profit organizations against each other. There are so many incredible non-profits in Toronto (and across the province and the country, as well), and we’re all competing to secure money from the same small group of generous donors. Foundations often give multi-year grants to organizations like ours, but understandably, they also sometimes want to shift their support to other deserving groups after a few years. But for an organization like Nellie’s, who has a small number of donors and foundations who are contributing most of the fundraising, it strongly affects our bottom line when those shifts occur.
This reality points to a larger issue: the traditional fundraising model for community organizations is increasingly difficult to sustain. While we understand that donors and foundations must spread their support, the need for gender-based violence support in Toronto isn’t going away. We need more sustainable ways to support essential services so that organizations like ours aren’t constantly left on precarious footing.
For the last 50 years, Nellie’s has been incredibly fortunate to have the support of such an amazing community of donors. I’m hopeful that they will continue to show up and come through for us because they see the immense value in the work that this organization does in our community.