National Youth Advocacy Coalition closing its doors

The National Youth Advocacy Coalition, an organization founded in 1994 and dedicated to working with LGBTQ youth, announced yesterday that they are closing their doors next week.

The particularities of the mission have changed over the years, but the legacy of the organization has remained, primarily in all of the incredible leaders who worked with NYAC at some point in their youth.

It’s been a really tough time for non-profits. The recession hit everyone hard, but foundations in particularly saw huge losses in their endowments and pulled back funding across the board. We’re feeling this financial crunch now, a few years after the crash, because foundation funding is promised a number of years in advance.

The non-profit model is a challenging one. Organizations can lose financial stability after losing just one big grant. The non-profit sector has seen big lay-offs, cut-backs and countless organizations have shuttered their doors during this phase.

The non-profit model isn’t perfect, but the work of many of these organizations is extremely important. Organizations that dedicate themselves to working with and developing youth, especially in the queer movement, are even harder to lose.

We need more people doing this work, not fewer. We need more funding, not less.

I want to believe that something new will come up in the place of NYAC–the a stronger, more stable, more vibrant organization will rise from the dust to spearhead the work of the next generation of queer youth.

Here’s to hoping.