Needs always change and we have to stay flexible to that.”

Cherish Cronmiller, executive director for Olympic Community Action Program

Dramatic shifts in circumstances have hit everyone in the last few years.

While that’s meant isolation and illness for most, for the Olympic Community Action Program it created a massive upsurge in funding to assist with the difficulties so many have experienced.

Pre-pandemic, OlyCAP had 35 revenue contracts totaling more than $6 million on Dec. 31, 2019.

On Dec. 31, 2022, the nonprofit totaled $21.7 million in revenues through 78 contracts.

With more than triple the capital available, the agency has been able to fund new projects like 7th Haven, Caswell-Brown Village, an emergency mobile food market, housing for youth initiatives, Foundational Community Supports, and low-income water utility assistance.

The swell, however, is about to shrink as public life continues to shift.

“We’re going to see that start to go back down. A lot of the COVID funds are expiring,” said Cherish Cronmiller, executive director for the organization.

“Rental assistance, utility assistance, certainly donations, all of that is going to be down,” she added.

The shifting tides are no surprise to this nonprofit first founded in 1966 as the Clallam-Jefferson Community Action Council less than two years after the enactment of federal authorizing legislation.

“That happens with a CAP agency, sometimes the revenue goes up and down depending on what grants and funding streams are available and what projects we’re working on,” Cronmiller said.

At the moment, the group is doing some its largest projects ever with the 7th Haven housing project, a 43-unit apartment building for low-income individuals and families, and the planned expansion of Caswell-Brown Village to include both an emergency shelter and permanent supportive housing for families.

Even while those are still in the works, funding has begun wearing thin.

“I wouldn’t say necessarily that we’re up at that peak. We’re starting to sort of go on a downward slope, but doing our best to look for revenues and grants that will continue to keep the services we need for the community in place,” Cronmiller said.

While the nonprofit has expanded offices and added new staff roles, particularly around housing, staff numbers are actually slightly below where they were pre-pandemic.

In 2019, there were 140 people on staff, while today there are only 110 at the agency with 18 positions still open, Cronmiller said.

“That’s a little interesting because we were down some and then we came back up because our agency stopped providing home healthcare,” she said.

Forty positions were dropped when enough privately operated home healthcare operators came online locally that the nonprofit was able to back out of the field, while 20 positions were added in housing and early childhood classrooms.

“Needs always change and we have to stay flexible to that,” Cronmiller said. “That money was better spent elsewhere.”

To maintain its vision of building resilient communities by providing equitable access to solutions and opportunities, the group has to keep a keen eye on where those opportunities lie.

“It’s not necessarily about the dollars, it’s making sure that the community and the folks we serve are being well-served and taken care of. That’s first and foremost,” Cronmiller said.

One of the biggest changes since 2019 has been an expansion of the clients the agency has been able to assist.

“We were able to help a lot of people in crisis who have never used our services before, and that includes a lot of the rent assistance we put out. It was the landlords, it’s not the customers, that get the money, right? We pay the landlords, so it was really the landlords in the area that were suffering because they were the ones not getting the rent,” Cronmiller said.

“Yeah, we’re keeping people housed, but we’re also ensuring that the landlords are able to pay their mortgages and bills,” she added.

Of course, funding for those programs are now some of the first to dry up.

“Some of those rental assistance dollars are going to be going away, so we are trying to supplement that so we can keep the staff that we’ve hired up with a different type of funding stream that will continue to allow us to provide case management support for customers,” Cronmiller said.