Churches United struggles financially, potentially impacting its future mission

MOORHEAD, Minn. (KVRR) — Churches United has reached its goal of gathering enough donations to pay their employees, but keeping their doors open is another story.

Churches United has been serving the Fargo-Moorhead community for the past thirty-five years. With three operating locations, its impact has benefited the community, but its financial struggles have caused mishaps with keeping its mission alive.

Pastor Brooks says, “There’s been a struggle for some months. This isn’t an issue that happened overnight right. It may appear that way to the community, but Churches United has been having to make difficult decisions for quite some time.”

Pastor Devlyn Brooks had just taken the position early this week after being a previous volunteer at the non-profit. While the position is a huge impact for him the thought of the place closing is another story.

“Yesterday, when one of our guests approached one of our team members and said, ” You know this is challenging but we are family and families rally together,” And so that was kind of a rallying cry for our team,” says Brooks.

While Pastor Brooks has only been with the team a few days, he has made three goals for the non-profit to stay afloat: one to meet payroll, two meet the needs of the workers by the end of this month, and three structural changes.

He says, “Our promise has been help us take care of goals number one and number two. And then our leadership team, our executive team, is going to dig in and do the work to figure out how we reorganize and restructure so that we can maintain sustainability and viability long into the future.”

Currently, they have met their first goal and Pastor Brooks believes they will meet there second goal for the end of the month. But the message they also want to share to community is that while they are asking for help now, they don’t want you to forget what they do for the community.

If you’re interested in making a financial contribution to Churches United, click here for more options.