Salvation Army recovers after holiday deficit

The Salvation Army announced Wednesday that it has reached the Tree of Lights $2.93 million goal ahead of its Jan. 31 deadline.

It was a sigh of relief to many because the Salvation Army of Indiana had fallen $468,925 short on its holiday fundraising as of Jan. 4, putting the funding for many programs in central Indiana at stake.

The Salvation Army gave one last public appeal on Jan. 4, and the community responded to push the charity to its goal in two weeks.

“We gained a lot of money in the past two weeks. Sometimes it takes awhile to process gifts, especially from small businesses,” Development Director Jeff Stanger said.

“The red kettles brought in about 60 to 70 percent of the donations. Some other major contributors were direct mail, our Facebook page and our new texting campaigns,” he said.

Mike Rowland, spokesman for the Indiana Division, said one factor that caused the shortage was smaller donations from the community.

“We didn’t receive as large donations as previous years,” he said.

The Salvation Army had to turn to their strategic cash reserve in order to run some programs, but members of the charity didn’t give up.

“The deadline is creeping nearer, but we are still optimistic,” Rowland said prior to reaching the goal. “We hope that nothing happens to our funding, but we will continue service, even if we have to trim the budget in some areas.”

Stanger said in the event of a needed budget cut, the Salvation Army did not know specifically what it would cut.

“We would most likely scale back programs or staff,” Stanger said.

Even though the Salvation Army might cut programs in the event of extreme deficits in the future, there are many programs, which remain all across the state, to which people can donate 24 hours a day and 365 days per year.