Spring Funding Initiative & Mid-Year Update

Hello to our wonderful Bridges & Balm community! We are grateful for your generosity, your trust in us, and your incredible care and support for the vulnerable. This post launches our 2026 Spring Fundraising Initiative and shares updates on our financial status and  operations.

2026 Spring Funding Initiative

June is here, and that means it's time for our Spring/Summer funding drive!  Our fundraising goal for this initiative is $70,000.  If you are able, please consider making a donation.  Every donation helps. If you are not able to give at this time, thank you for your loving support, care and thoughts. Everyone can help by sharing this information with your communities.

Bridges & Balm emerged as a response to survivors of sexual abuse and resting or transitioning workers who need critical support during difficult times. Our goal is to provide a structured lifeline for those who have experienced the deepest wounds and most profound transitions. 

Your support matters – and now it can go twice as far!

Now is a great time to contribute to those in need! 

• Donate once, make twice the impact: An anonymous Bridges & Balm donor will match donations from "first time in 2026" donors through the end of June (up to $200 per donation). You can donate once and make twice the impact! 

• Tax benefits: Donations to Bridges & Balm qualify for 2026 tax deductions if you itemize. We are a 501(c)(3) tax exempt charity, and donations to Bridges & Balm can reduce your taxable income for those who itemize deductions.

Our focus is to help resting and transitioning workers with basic living expenses and survivors with therapy costs, often through collaborating with other survivor charities to maximize our impact. With recent changes at WANIDAK and other regional funds, we anticipate growing requests for survivor therapy assistance from Bridges & Balm.

Your mid-year donations make a tangible difference for people with unmet needs by bolstering and sustaining our finances for Q3 and you may also qualify for tax benefits. We hope you will support us in our goal to help those with unmet needs in our broader fellowship community. 

For more information, please visit the Spring Funding Initiative webpage.  

Bridges & Balm Website Updates

We have made some subtle but significant changes to the Bridges & Balm website designed to streamline donations, add capabilities and improve navigation.

Donate Page: We have updated our Donate page to make donating easier and more intuitive, better support our international community and overcome some limitations with our website vendor. Hopefully these changes will improve and simplify your donation experience.

• Mobile Giving: Mobile donors can now use Apple Pay, Google Pay, Paypal and Amazon Pay.  A new QuickDonate Mobile option streamlines the mobile donation form by defaulting preferences to the most common selections.

• Single Donate Button: Donorbox/Stripe is now our single vendor for both one-time and recurring credit card donations and fields are pre-filled whenever possible.

• International Support: Now international donors can donate using their local currency and credit card vendors.

• Immediate confirmation: You will now receive an immediate email from Donorbox confirming your credit card donation.

Blog Page Thematic index: Blog posts are now sorted by theme on the main blog page.

Blog Update Subscriptions: You can now sign up to receive an email notification when a new blog post is published.

“Who We Are” Page Updates - The “Who We Are” page now reflects the current Bridges & Balm Board of Directors and Officers.

Many of the changes are cosmetic and the overall look and feel of the website hasn't dramatically changed, but there have been significant improvements to the Donate options.  It has been thoroughly tested, but if you find issues, please email us at  Bridgesandbalm@gmail.com and include a description of the problem you encountered. 

Financial & Operational Status

Your generosity has already made a profound difference to our assistance community in the first half of 2026:

• Total 2026 donations: $119,000 as of early June ($244,000 including the 2025 carryover);

• Assistance provided: Over $200,000 to 28 survivors and 34 resting and transitioning workers.

It's been a very active year on the donation and funding fronts. Our average monthly donations, while still robust, have decreased ~25% while assistance requests have increased ~30% the first half 2026 as compared to 2025.  Donations are likely affected by economic uncertainty and global instability, and assistance increases are primarily the result of inflation and reductions in some government programs that have caused financial stress for many in our assistance community. We are deeply thankful for your generosity that resulted in our large carryover from 2025 that helped to minimize benefit changes.  

Assistance Snapshot

We’re currently supporting 28 survivors and 34 transitioning workers per month. During the last two months, our assistance levels averaged $35,000 per month as a result of our belt-tightening initiative, ensuring that we can meet longer term basic assistance requirements based on reduced projected donations. 

The above chart shows the breakout between survivor and worker assistance levels over the last 12 months. Note that the May 2026 payment totals are somewhat skewed as they contain a one-time relatively large pass-through donation and payment to a small group of former workers.

Requests for assistance from resting and transitioning workers in 2026 continued to rise and we expect that to continue as more become comfortable reaching out to Bridges & Balm and global economic conditions become more difficult.

For the first time, the number of survivors we assist with therapy declined.  This is the result of some being transferred to other charities for support and other survivors completing their therapy program. Pathways 2 Healing Network (P2HN), our onboarding partner, periodically reviews the therapy status and treatment plan of survivors and notifies us when survivors exit therapy.  

Note that we do expect the number of survivors funded to flatten or moderately increase for the remainder of 2026 as we absorb survivors from WANIDAK and other regional funds that are winding down.

Donations  Snapshot

As mentioned above, donations have declined and assistance levels have increased  in 2026 as compared to the same period in 2025, but we have been able to absorb that by utilizing the large 2025 carryover and exhibiting an increased level of fiscal caution. 

We are extremely thankful for our loyal and generous donor community.  Our 63 recurring donors contribute over $10,000 each month, and we appreciate each one of you.  We also appreciate our periodic donors who donate through their IRA’s and trust funds, and those of you who make the effort to donate when you are able.  Thank you all!

A successful Spring Funding Initiative will enable us to fund assistance levels through the rest of 2026 while also preserving our reserve fund, enabling us to meet essential needs of our assistance community even in an extended economic slowdown scenario. 

Donations will always be affected by the economy and we will continue to monitor donation levels closely and proactively adjust our assistance levels appropriately. Please monitor our Funds Overview and Activity page of the Bridges & Balm website for the most recent charts showing recent monthly expenditures and donations. As always, we appreciate any donations you can make and are deeply thankful for your compassion and care for our former worker and survivor community.

Other Ways You Can Help

We understand that not everyone can contribute financially and there are other ways you can help!  Below are roles and responsibility descriptions of areas where we need help in our day-to-day operations.  If you feel you can contribute in any of these areas, please contact us at BridgesandBalm@gmail.com 

• Onboarding former workers: The Bridges & Balm Worker Committee researches the needs and situation of former workers that reach out to us or are referred to us.  Many former workers are (at a minimum) spiritually abused, so it is important for those on the worker committee to have empathy and patience.

• Being an advocate: We need helpers who just keep in contact with those who are struggling and need help with some of the day-to-day challenges, whether we are financially assisting them currently or not.

• Specialized Housing/Government assistance advisors: We need to be able to help those in our assistance community navigate the government programs - SS/SSI, Medicare/Medicaid, SNAP, Section 8 and private housing, etc.  This is a huge challenge, particularly for resting workers. If you have expertise in these areas, we’d welcome your assistance.

• Long Term Planning for our assistance community: Some transitioning workers are younger and we help them get back on their feet after medical or financial setbacks so that they can become self-sufficient.  Others are older, have no means to generate more income, and will need assistance for the long term. Everyone’s situation is different, so helping them develop a viable customized long term plan is critical.

• Bridge & Balm Treasurer: We are looking for a financial officer so if you have skills in that area please contact us!