Please see attached our financial reports for the calendar and fiscal year 2025.
As with nearly every non-profit, especially LGBTQ+ ones (as the Pride Center showed very visibly), 2025 was a very hard year for finances for us. Major changes in governmental policy removed billions from the public space; even organizations like ours, which never got federal money directly, suffered greatly, because of federal money that previously reached us indirectly through foundations and other sources, and because while the need was getting higher, nearly everyone was scrambling for a bigger share of a shrinking pot of funds.
In addition, most of our funding in both 2023 and 2024 came as a result of flood relief efforts following the historic July 10th floods in both years. While most of that funding went on to the Rainbow Relief program, and most of that to direct support, this still left the Center a lot more wiggle-room for its operating expenses like rent and office supplies. Much to Barre’s relief, 2025 brought no comparable flood, but that also meant RBCC got no comparable influx of funding.
While we are nearing our four-year anniversary, it is an inescapable fact that, throughout that entire time, we have never had a recurring funding source that comes anywhere near our monthly operating expenses. In fact, our rent plus associated occupancy costs amount to almost three thousand dollars a month, while our recurring monthly income is less than an eight of that. Thus far, the difference has been made up almost entirely by a series of one-time windfalls, such as those post-flood donations. In 2025, that didn’t continue to happen.
Therefore, in 2026, barring some unforeseen good fortune, we anticipate closing our physical space and “going mobile”, moving all of our groups, clubs, events, and services to other venues. We look forward to this letting us bring our presence to more of Central Vermont. We hope to use 2026 to develop a robust fundraising system that will not only sustain our current activities, but eventually let us restore some of what we’ve had to let go of, including staffing, programs that have run out of funds, and eventually opening a new physical drop-in space. It’s important that we use this time to build a solid foundation for funding before we start to extend ourselves back into those kinds of things, though. We’ve been balanced on a knife’s edge too long.
We look forward to continuing to spread queer joy and community in these increasingly trying times, and hope we’ll be able to count on you to help us make our presence more rock-solid than ever in 2026.
– Freesia, RBCC Treasurer and General Dogsbody
