The Fenway Community Center (FCC) operated in a deficit in fiscal year 2025, with the nonprofit’s expenses landing around $120,000 greater than its revenue.
At its annual meeting on Monday, FCC Executive Director Mallory Rorhig presented a summarized breakdown of the organization’s fiscal year, including programming, visitation and attendance figures as well as finances.
The organization brought in around $230,000 worth of revenue, including grant money, state funding, donations and rental income.
FCC’s expenses included $209,599 in staffing costs, $69,666 in programming costs and $44,223 in occupancy costs. Total expenses added up to $349,649.
The over $200,000 in staffing costs include the salaries of 1 full time employee, 1 “nearly” full time employee, one part time employee and external support in areas such as accounting, legal counsel and human resources.
Rohrig said there is a chance the organization “might just make it” when it comes to overcoming the deficit in the 2026 fiscal year.
“In 2025, the fight began,” said Rohrig.
“We were very lucky to raise the amount of revenue, but as you can see, we didn’t get there yet.”
She said the goal is to figure out how to avoid having a similar conversation at this time next year.
“We might just make it,” said Rorhig.
“The very small staff that we have are doing everything in our power.”
Residents in attendance questioned why the community center isn’t receiving more support from the city when it comes to funding and other assistance such as foregoing property taxes, which the FCC pays $20,000 of each year. Rohrig said since the FCC is not a Boston Center for Youth and Families, it is not eligible for certain city funding that helps other similar centers around Boston. The nonprofit also doesn’t meet certain citywide regulations to have its property taxes removed.
The organization seeks out grant funding, but Rohrig said many donors have certain specifications on how they want grant money to be used.
“We’re a smaller organization and a lot of these smaller grants want to fund one-time projects,” said Rohrig. “They don’t want to fund staffing. They don’t want to fund property taxes. They don’t want to fund facilities.
The FCC is hosting a 10th birthday party on Thursday, September 24 to celebrate a decade in operation. Proceeds from ticket sales go towards fundraising efforts.
