Fighting Harder for Local Women and Children

How dwindling Victims of Crimes Act funds are affecting abuse survivors in northern Michigan

By Jillian Manning | Dec. 6, 2025

Traverse Bay Children’s Advocacy Center (TBCAC) has been navigating a particularly challenging year.

Though CEO Lander Bachert is proud that her CAC is “one of the best in the state” with “world-class mental health” care for the kids and teens they serve, she’s still seeing a “pretty intense spike of children coming through our doors.”

“When … families don’t have access to food, or when they don’t have access to housing, or when they don’t have access to economic security, that’s when people are the most likely to harm children because they’re stressed,” she says. “People are not their best people when under duress.”

Stress & Harm

TBCAC’s mission “is to provide a coordinated, multidisciplinary response to allegations of child abuse in a child-sensitive, trauma-informed environment, to offer therapeutic treatment for those who have been harmed, and to champion a world without abuse through awareness, prevention, education, and outreach.”

According to TBCAC’s 2024 annual report, the organization performed 460 forensic interviews and offered 1,637 counseling sessions to child survivors and their families last year. An additional 3,226 people were served by the nonprofit’s Prevention Education arm, which offers training to the public to “prevent harm before it happens.”

It’s a difficult job under any circumstances, made harder by our country’s current social, economic, and political climate.

“We talk a bunch about how the economic security and the health and wellness of people as a whole—as a community or as a nation—directly impacts how many children we see,” Bachert says. “Our numbers are going up too because people are not doing well.”

Bachert points to delays to SNAP benefits, inflation woes, healthcare uncertainty, and the trickle-down effect of federal funding cuts to other nonprofits as issues that feed the fire.

“From where I sit, the people who are most likely to feel the impact of instability are children,” she says.

Dollars & Cents

As far as funding goes, Bachert knew from the start of the year that things were going to be rocky for her organization.

TBCAC is primarily funded—Bachert says nearly 70 percent—through the Victims of Crime Act (VOCA) and the Crime Victims Fund (CVF). The legislation ensures that “criminal fines, penalties, and assessments from federal offenders are directed toward victim assistance and compensation programs,” per the National Association of VOCA Assistance Administrators.

Thousands of domestic violence shelters, rape crisis centers, child abuse treatment programs, and other similar groups receive money from the Crime Victims Fund. That pot of money has often fluctuated since the act went into effect in 1984 but has been steadily decreasing since 2019.

Together for the Girls, a global organization working to end violence against children and adolescents, notes that this decrease is “a result of lower deposits and a decline in the CVF balance as well as a lack of predictability as to when proceeds from CVF funding sources would be deposited. This decrease in funds was caused in part by increased reliance by the United States Department of Justice on deferred and non-prosecution agreements in white-collar criminal cases.”

As Bachert explains, one of the factors affecting the fund is that when cases that would normally support the CVF are settled out of court, the money “is redistributed, not to the Victims of Crime Act but to the U.S. Treasury,” a trend that has become more common in the last “six or seven years.”

Legislation & Donations

To right the ship and keep funding consistent from year to year, advocates are trying to pass the Crime Victims Fund Stabilization Act of 2025, which was introduced to the U.S. House of Representatives in February of this year. (With 322 bipartisan cosponsors, no less, with representatives from every state except Alaska, Montana, and Wyoming.)

The bill would “temporarily provide additional deposits into the Crime Victims Fund” from 2025 to 2029 when “amounts necessary to remunerate qui tam plaintiffs … are not available for deposit to the Fund.”

But the bill has languished in the House for nine months. “If they don’t get to it before the end of the session, then we have to start all over again,” Bachert laments.

“I’ve been trying to make that message pretty clear,” Bachert says of her conversations with donors, “if people really do care about their sustainability, now is the time to give because it’s so uncertain.”

Bachert is quick to add that TBCAC has “really incredible donors who are fighting with us every step of the way to get things done and to keep us safe,” but that kind of fundraising is only “a short-term solution.”

“All the philanthropic dollars in America—without federal assistance—could keep nonprofits running for less than 30 days,” Bachert says, noting that it would be almost impossible for private donations to replace federal funding.

Though TBCAC runs a relatively lean organization—a $1.4 million budget that supports almost 20 staff members and nearly 2,000 local children—this year alone they need to raise an additional $250,000 to fill in the gaps.

As such, Bachert says that TBCAC will have to depend on those local donors over the next few years while they work toward a more sustainable solution, supposing that the CVF and other federal funds continue to dry up and not get attention from Congress.

Gentleness & Giving

In the meantime, Bachert has two asks to make of northern Michigan.

“The first thing I’ve really been encouraging is just be cognizant of your community and the people that are in it. I think there is this belief that people who are struggling are somehow removed from people we see and interact with every day, but that is not the case. … These are kids that people see at the grocery store and church [and] walking around.”

Putting that into action means being “aware that we share this community with each other and just be a little gentler, because people really are struggling, even if folks aren’t seeing it in their day-to-day worlds.”

Second on her list is to remind folks that every dollar counts.

“If everyone in Grand Traverse County gave $1, most [nonprofits’] budgets would be set. So I don’t want people to think that they don’t have anything to give. I think giving what you can, when you can, is important.”

Urgency & Adaptability

On the other side of town, the Women’s Resource Center is also watching the VOCA situation closely, as they too receive a significant chunk of their funding from the Crime Victims Fund.

“I would say not just for this year, but for the past two to three years, we have budgeted a 10 percent reduction in grant funding,” says WRC executive director Juliette Schultz. “The Victims of Crime Act fund has basically been reduced over time, so we’ve known for at least five years” that funding would diminish for their organization.

Schultz says that the WRC has gone to legislators every year to plead their case and demonstrate how the lack of VOCA dollars will affect survivors of domestic and sexual violence here in northern Michigan.

“Every year we’ve been getting louder and louder, and this year it really felt imperative,” Schultz says. “For me, the anxiety around this year’s [funding] was much greater than it has been in the past, in part because of the federal and state standoffs.”

She is especially grateful that the donor base Up North also senses the urgency of the situation.

“The community has always come out to support us when we’ve been under any kind of pressure, and I think they recognize that we are an emergency service, so we are dealing with survivors in immediate crisis who need help,” says Schultz. “People are paying close attention.”

Fundraising & Thrifting

When it comes to funding, WRC has focused on diversifying. According to their fiscal year 2023-2024 annual report, the WRC received $712,482 in federal and state funding and another $214,045 in foundation grants. Household donor contributions totaled $506,048, with other organizations and businesses donating $358,157.

“We have really focused our attention on our fundraising for the past three years now and really building our own internal capacity so that we are able to, hopefully, withstand any scheduled or unscheduled cutbacks,” Schultz says. “We also, unlike a lot of organizations like us, have two thrift shops that support our mission. And so that’s another thing we’re really grateful and lucky to have.”

Indeed, the thrift stores added about $1.5 million to the WRC budget, per the 2023-2024 report. The stores also give $8,000-$10,000 in free clothing and household items to community members in need each year.

For now, Schultz expects that the WRC will be able to hold steady even if more cuts come down the pipeline.

Survivors & Support

But the same can’t be said for the people needing the WRC’s help. Schultz says that last year, the WRC’s services to survivors went up 24 percent. The center is now fielding more than 5,000 calls per year.

And, after taking a look at the nonprofit’s call log last month, Schultz noticed the requests for food assistance were going up too. (WRC tracks calls as they relate to shelter, food, emergency financial assistance, and other needs.)

“I think it was even double the number of requests for assistance with food,” Schultz says.

Like Bachert, Schultz has a list of ways community members can make a difference beyond a monetary donation.

Up first is a trip to the thrift store. “If somebody wants to give a gift to somebody in the community, they can go through their closet and they can donate to our thrift shops, and it either supports our mission or community,” Schultz says.

Next is just being aware that the WRC is available to help 24/7 for both survivors and other supportive people in their lives.

“If they know of somebody who might be needing some support, they can refer that person to us. Or, if they want to provide support to somebody in the community or a friend or a family member, they themselves can reach out and they can talk to an advocate about the best way to do that.”

Schultz says that all of the above help support and advocate for the WRC’s mission “to protect, shelter, and empower all people impacted by domestic and sexual violence.”

To learn more about these organizations, visit traversebaycac.org and womensresourcecenter.org.