Mennonite Central Committee cuts programs, citing low thrift store revenue

Mennonite Central Committee Canada is making cuts to several programs because its main revenue generator isn't pulling in enough funds.

The international relief organization, headquartered in Winnipeg, anticipates a decrease of $800,000 in revenue coming from its thrift stores in the next fiscal year.

Each store is essentially run as its own non-profit, where revenues are balanced against daily expenses such as heating, lighting, and donation pickups, as well as maintenance to aging buildings.

Those infrastructure costs are rising so the funding that gets forwarded to MCC is declining, a spokesperson said.

As well, there is much more competition in the thrift sale market with other retailers and online sellers.

"This is somewhat of a wake-up call for us to make sure that we are on our toes," executive director Rick Cober Bauman said.

Several cuts will be coming to the MCC, including full-time positions in the charity's national office, based in Winnipeg. Three national co-ordinator positions for the Indigenous neighbours, restorative justice, and Low German programs will be eliminated.

However, Cober Bauman said the work in those areas would still continue in all provinces where the programs exist. But they will be run by the provincial offices instead.

MCC Manitoba will continue with the Indigenous neighbours and restorative justice programs but is eliminating the Low German one in June.

The program, based in Winkler, historically worked with Low German Mennonites who had immigrated from Mexico, Paraguay, Bolivia, and Belize, by providing them with translating and documentation services.

MCC says one of its main revenue generators—are not pulling in enough.

6 years ago

Duration 2:20

Mennonite Central Committee Canada is making cuts to several programs because its main revenue generator isn't pulling in enough funds.

"In many places there are now second generation members of those communities who are more well-established," Cober Bauman said. "Now we feel like the community supports are reasonably well in place to respond to those folks that are still coming.

"Increasingly those services are also available more generally, not only through MCC," he added.

Other national cuts include the closure of MCC's Newfoundland and Labrador office this summer, and the elimination of the youth and online engagement co-ordinator in the Maritimes.

Two additional programs will also be eliminated — MCC will stop its coordinating role with a prison visitation program in Alberta, while  its international volunteer exchange program in Quebec will also end.

Conversely, the charity has increased funding into its international relief work, and is also putting more focus into its national advocacy in Ottawa, Cober Bauman said.

"We have tended to be a widely spread — sometimes even thinly spread — organization, not investing deeply in in any particular area," he said.

Thrift stores 'the backbone' of charity

MCC thrift stores are a major way the charity finances its work. Last year, $9.1 million came into MCC Canada through second-hand sales.

"Thrift is a huge contributor, it varies between 25 and 30 per cent of all the revenues that we take in from donors and [volunteers]," Cober Bauman said.

Aileen Friesen, an assistant professor at the University of Winnipeg who teaches courses about Mennonite history, said the thrift stores have also become a point of identity for the organization.

"A lot of people associate the thrift stores with MCC, and even if they don't understand MCC's broader agenda and work within the international community, they see that they go to the thrift store, they shop there, they associate that process with Mennonites and Mennonite culture," she said.

While it might be struggling with funds, Friesen said the MCC is an integral part of the Mennonite community in Canada and worldwide.

However, the newer generation might not have the same connection to the charity.

"Many people owe their lives, in fact, to MCC, which started out as an aid organization dealing with famine in Russia after the revolution in 1920," she said, adding that the organization would go on to offer support to new immigrants.

"For a particular generation, there is strong support for MCC. That story maybe isn't as relevant to younger Mennonites, but I think that they do understand the role MCC has played internationally in helping with development."