Why Your Gifts Matter: The Importance of Unrestricted Funds

Every young person deserves safety and support. At My Life My Choice, the Survivor Empowerment Team (SET) is the brain, heart and body behind ensuring the care of marginalized young people through our direct services. From survivor mentoring to case management to leadership development, they provide intensive, consistent, and multidisciplinary support to the youth we serve. It is thanks to their hard work that we can help young people who have experienced exploitation build the skills they need to grow into successful, healthy adults and be a resource to ensure their stability until they do so. 

As a non-profit organization, we are acutely aware that we would not be able to show up for our youth in this way without our community and their generous donations.  Nor would we be able to see youth as soon as we can and for as long as they want, without having to rely on any funding source to dictate this. We are incredibly grateful for the support we receive every day.  

Because of the unrestricted funds that we receive through donations, we were able to help our mentee, M.* (age 20), who we have known since she was 16 years old. She was in a difficult situation juggling work, high school and caring for her child. She had become unable to pay for her babysitter, to the point where she risked losing access to childcare. M. had been able to find a job that allowed her to support their family with a flexible enough schedule to attend school. With no one to care for her child, she would have had to choose between work, which her family’s livelihood depended on, and school, which would allow her to access key opportunities in the future. 

Situations like M.’s can snowball very easily, and having access to unrestricted funds allowed us to step in before things could domino further. With us helping that young person pay for childcare until she saved up to restart payments herself, she was able to continue meeting their and her family’s basic needs while resuming her path towards empowerment and independence. 

Unfortunately, a majority of the funding sources we have access to as an organization are restricted. They require recipients to match certain criteria or the funds to be used for a specific purpose. However, as the commercial sex industry overwhelmingly targets youth that have been pushed to the margins, our mentees cannot always meet eligibility requirements.    

Unrestricted funds are the flexible resources that an organization can use as they see fit. For us, at My Life My Choice, this pool is comprised of donations made to us without a specific designation.  

At My Life My Choice, a majority of our unrestricted funds are used in cases like M.'s, where we are able to support a youth through financial assistance during important life events. Often, this entails helping parenting youth, or young people over the age of 18 meet basic needs. 

Giving them the tools they need to build their own stability, we help pay for things such as State ID fees, laptops for college classes, or apartment rental application fees. This allows us to support youth in developing their own independence.  

At times, though, this requires putting out fires during an emergency. We know that reaching higher-level goals and maintaining independence is nearly impossible if basic needs aren’t being met. In those cases, we do our best to step in and help our youth stay safe.  

Typically, the funds and resources we receive require applications or time spent on a waitlist. This makes acting fast in emergency situations difficult. This is another instance where unrestricted funds are beneficial. 

I.* (age 19) was pregnant and evicted from her apartment after losing her job. She found herself couch surfing and reconnected to her exploiter - entangled in a web of unsafe relationships. My Life My Choice used unrestricted funds to pay for a few nights of hotel accommodations until she could be placed in a shelter in a different town. She has since left the shelter for transitional housing and is now living safely with her child. 

In some cases, unrestricted funds have also granted us the flexibility to customize support to our youth’s needs. In cases like our mentee, Z.* (age 17) who needed a healthy outlet for their anger to avoid reverting to harmful habits, we were able to enroll them in dance classes so that they could engage in a healthy coping mechanism.  

Looking at M., I., and Z. makes it clear that unrestricted funds, and therefore community gifts, are not only important, but essential to our mission. They allow us to reach young people with the support they need, how they need it, and when they need it most. 

We know that you agree that there is no such thing as other people’s children. The most impactful way to help us always ensure our youth’s basic needs are met is to donate directly. During this upcoming giving season, donations from the community make a significant difference in the year to come. 

If you can support our direct services, please click here to donate.  

For any questions or concerns about donations or our services, please contact our Donor Relations and Outreach Coordinator, Lina Lahlou at llahlou@jri.org.   

*Names abbreviated to protect our mentees’ anonymity.