Happy New Year! Here at Big Brothers Big Sisters, we are lucky enough to have two new years to celebrate: one on Jan. 1 when the calendar flips from December to January, and one on July 1 with the start of our new fiscal year (FY). 

As I’ve mentioned in the past, I’m not a huge fan of new year’s resolutions, but I do enjoy the opportunity to take a look back at everything we’ve accomplished in the last year, and also look ahead to all of the exciting new initiatives and plans in place for the upcoming year – calendar or fiscal. 

We have many reasons to celebrate as the new fiscal year begins. From July 1, 2023, until June 30, 2024, we did some pretty BIG things: 

• We lunched a third section of our Bigs on Campus mentoring initiative at St. Cloud Technical & Community College. This initiative paired kids from the Sauk Rapids-Rice School District with faculty and staff from SCTCC, as well as local professionals, and we ended the school year with 12 matches. 
• We are more than halfway to the $10 million goal in our For Kids, Forever, endowment campaign! Thanks to the forward thinking of so many of our generous donors and supporters, we have raised nearly $6 million in less than one year of the campaign. This sets us up to continue to serve local youth far into the future. 
• Our fall recruitment campaign brought in the names of 115 people interested in becoming a mentor and helped us reach several of our benchmark goals! We surpassed our goal for new community-based matches this fiscal year, and several of our school-based programs also reached and passed their average length of match goals. 

There is also much to be excited about as we look ahead. 

• Our agency turns 55 this year! BBBS of Central Minnesota was started in June of 1969, and has been supporting kids and defending the potential of local youth ever since. We are proud to continue what our founding directors started 55 years ago! 
• We will start a new cohort of mentors and mentees with our BIG Partners initiative. The first cohort of mentees graduated from St. Cloud Tech and Apollo high schools this spring, and we look forward to bringing a new group together to help each other grow this fall. 

Even as we look ahead with excitement, we know there are also financial challenges ahead for our agency in the coming fiscal year. Fundraising is down for nonprofits across the country, and we are no exception. Models for donating at places like United Way, as well as local businesses, are changing as the companies change ownership, employee engagement, or funding priorities, and that affects our bottom line. We are more appreciative of our donors than ever, and urge everyone to consider becoming a monthly donor or connect with us to determine how your company would like to support our work. 

As always, we continue to focus on making sure that our program provides the support our kids need, and ensuring our services grow with a growing and changing population. Thank you for your support, and for helping us defend the potential of local youth! Here’s to the next 55 years!