Pine Street Inn, New England's largest homeless services organization, announced today that it has exceeded its "Key Moments" capital campaign goal, raising $51M. The campaign funds will help the nonprofit reach 1,000+ units of permanent supportive housing throughout greater Boston. The funds will provide for the creation of 200 new units of housing, for the repair and improvement to existing housing units, and will establish a source of permanent funding for supportive services. The campaign has also helped to scale up a new generation of programs critical to both homelessness prevention and ending homelessness earlier and faster.
The Key Moments campaign was announced in September 2019 as part of the organization's 50th anniversary, with a goal of $50M and marked the nonprofit's largest fundraising initiative to date.
With a 95% retention rate in its housing, Pine Street Inn has demonstrated that permanent supportive housing is the solution to homelessness, and the campaign has allowed the organization to accelerate its housing plan. Additionally, the pandemic has reinforced the importance of housing as a social determinant of health.
"Pine Street Inn is beyond grateful for the extraordinary show of support from so many individuals, corporations and foundations," said Lyndia Downie, Pine Street's President and Executive Director. "Not only did the campaign exceed its goal, it was completed a year early — and during a pandemic! These funds will allow us to move forward with large-scale housing, which is desperately needed. At the same time, there is still an ongoing need to cover our everyday operational expenses, and we are so very grateful to our entire community of supporters."
The achievement of exceeding the campaign goal was made possible through the generosity of more than 800 supporters, with gifts ranging from $5 to $5M, from both the public and private sectors. Lead donors included Bank of America, Liberty Mutual Insurance, Mass General Brigham, Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company (MassMutual) and Suffolk Cares — each committing $1M towards the Boston's Way Home Fund (BWHF), launched under former Mayor Martin J. Walsh in partnership with Bank of America. BWHF raised $10M to supplement the work of the city's action plan to prevent and end chronic and veteran homelessness in Boston.
The completion of this campaign marks a milestone for Pine Street Inn, and the organization is extremely grateful for its community of supporters who helped exceed the $50M goal to expand critically needed resources for the city's most vulnerable residents. Although these funds will enable the organization to plan for future large-scale housing and services, there continues to be an urgent need for support of its daily operations, including emergency shelter, street outreach and job training, which depend on the ongoing generosity of its annual donors at all levels.