LIFT-UP announces upcoming changes as donations drop and demand rises

Chelsea Self/Post Independent
Local food assistance nonprofit LIFT-UP announced a plan to decrease operating costs in light of ongoing funding challenges during an informational meeting with members of the media on Wednesday.
LIFT-UP has been combating food insecurity in the Parachute-to-Aspen corridor since 1982, when the abrupt collapse of western Colorado’s oil and shale industry left over 2,000 people without work.
The nonprofit offers mobile food distribution services, provides free meals through the Extended Table soup kitchen and maintains food pantries in Aspen, Carbondale, Glenwood Springs, New Castle, Rifle and Parachute. LIFT-UP is funded partially through the organization’s thrift stores in Glenwood Springs, Rifle, and Parachute, which offer affordable clothes, shoes and household items.
Over the past several months, three senior LIFT-UP leaders — including former Executive Director Ivan Jackson — stepped down from their positions, leaving a leadership gap that the organization is working to address.
Staff from Human Service Innovations, a consulting service that provides strategic assessment, planning and operational support, will guide LIFT-UP in leadership and organizational management until the nonprofit hires a permanent executive leader, LIFT-UP announced Wednesday.
In the meantime, Elyse Hottel has stepped in as LIFT-UP’s Interim Director of Operations and Jess Hedden has joined as Interim Director of Programs and Mission on behalf of Human Service Innovations.
Facing more than staffing challenges, LIFT-UP is also grappling with a strained budget: the demand for community food assistance has steadily increased while donations have declined.
Over the last three years, the number of community members served by LIFT-UP has almost quintupled, an upward trajectory that began during the COVID-19 pandemic and didn’t stop.
In 2021, LIFT-UP served 38,304 people. In 2024, the nonprofit served 188,060, according to a Wednesday news release from LIFT-UP.
“I like to refer to it as food in bellies,” John Dougherty, owner of Human Service Innovations consulting service, said. “We moved from roughly 40,000 bellies that we were providing resources to to almost 200,000 bellies in this most recent year. That growth then caused us to say, well, how are we keeping up with that and recognizing that we were seeing a different relationship happen from our fundraising and support.”
Dougherty attributes the significant increase in need to inflation and rising basic cost-of-living expenses.
“We have been on a solid trajectory upward for three years in a row, and the costs are not getting better,” Dougherty said. “It’s getting harder and harder. People’s budgets are getting tighter and tighter. The housing crisis that our community is facing is only further pinching the budgets of everyday citizens, which means that the population that we’re serving is also broadening.”
While visitor numbers, and operating expenses, have surged, LIFT-UP’s philanthropic donations have declined from $873,000 in 2022 to $634,000 in 2024.
“If this trend is going to continue, we are going to need the community to support us in a bigger way than what we have historically,” Dougherty said.
To combat this, the nonprofit plans to launch a publicity campaign in hopes of increasing food donations to reduce purchased food costs.
Over the coming weeks, LIFT-UP will carefully assess its services, identifying opportunities for improved efficiency while continuing to meet the need for food assistance.
Although the nonprofit’s 2025 operational budget has yet to be solidified, it will likely be significantly higher than the previous year’s, Dougherty said. To “be fiscally responsible and honor the long-term sustainability of the organization,” LIFT-UP Board of Directors recently approved a reduction in programming services, according to the news release.
“The team is working on a short-term and long-term financial plan, which will include a decrease in targeted programming that originated during the (COVID-19) pandemic but is less urgent today,” the release states.
LIFT-UP emphasizes that these changes, which will be announced in detail by Feb. 14, will not affect the organization’s ability to provide food assistance to those in need.
“This is an organization that has always been grounded in supporting the community with its food mission,” Dougherty said. “It’s a struggle to realize how much need is out there and how to get that story across without any true predictability of what might change that or improve those situations.”
Visit liftup.org/donate/ to support LIFT-UP’s mission to fight hunger from Parachute to Aspen.

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