March 2026
WHERE GIVING MEETS COMMUNITY
Insights on local generosity, nonprofit work, and the needs shaping our region.
By Rachel Reeher, Union-Snyder Community Action Agency administrative director
Like many organizations, Union-Snyder Community Action Agency (CAA) experienced an unprecedented year in 2025. We faced funding cuts, challenges, freezes, and historical delays, all of which reshaped the national nonprofit landscape, our work, and our ability to serve. In spite of this, we also witnessed truly inspiring wins because of our community.
During the SNAP halt in October and November 2025, private donors, local churches, businesses, students, and community organizations reached out to help fill the gaps, volunteer time, distribute information, and bolster our funding. We broadened our development approach to collaborate with more partners so that we could spread limited funding even further. We held more fundraisers, ramped up outreach efforts, and brought advocacy and education to the forefront so that the critical nature of our work was more visible, recognizable, and understood throughout our community.
And you know what? It worked. Alongside immense federal and state funding challenges, 2025 was our most successful community fundraising year to date. We nearly quadrupled our individual fundraising dollars, received dedicated emergency support from local organizations like Community Giving Foundation, and kept services afloat—only because community generosity made it possible.
The work that CAA does is, on paper, straightforward—housing and utilities assistance, food security programs, veterans’ services, low-income tax preparation, AmeriCorps. We help people who need help.
But what those categories don’t reflect is the unwavering commitment and compassion of our case workers fighting every day to make a safer home, a fuller belly, a broader safety net, and a better world for their clients. Every day our office radiates with sounds of case managers cheering on a mother who’s landed a great paying job, soothing a couple facing eviction, coaching new parents toward achieving their savings goals, helping to mend the relationship between a parent and estranged child, or celebrating a family’s new home after months of hard work.
Our staff do so much more than a brochure can convey, and it’s this deeper work of being community allies, resource hubs, stability coaches, and cheerleaders that drives us. It’s this human-to-human support that changes lives—and unfortunately, it’s the hardest thing to fund.
In 2025, CAA served a record high number of people in need: 5,079 unduplicated individuals. This year, with housing and living expenses increasing at rates that the average family in our area cannot sustain, we expect to beat that number—with substantially less funding.
In addition, the baseline cost to operate a nonprofit continues to rise, too. When we think about what challenges nonprofits face across the board, staffing support is at the top of the list. Staff are what make programs run, succeed, and ultimately worth funding. But funding trends prioritize new projects and programs, rarely allowing for staffing dollars. And while historically nonprofits have always done a lot with a little, we’re facing a time of great uncertainty and even greater need.
That’s where community giving makes all the difference.
Community giving is a critical resource because it recognizes unique local needs. It allows CAA to respond to the real day-to-day challenges our residents face. Because these dollars are flexible and locally rooted, they help us fill gaps that public funding can’t, and adapt services as needs inevitably shift, meaning we can meet our residents exactly where they are.
Community giving is a flexible and compassionate answer to the challenges of our region. Without it, CAA truly couldn’t do the work we do to improve lives, reduce poverty, and enact change every single day.
