A raffle of two Taylor Swift in Indianapolis tickets has raised over $29,000 for Middle Way House, Bloomington’s crisis center for survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault and human trafficking. The funding is vital for the nonprofit as it, along with crisis centers across the country, faces a funding shortfall.

Taylor Swift performs at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, on her “Reputation” stadium tour, Saturday, Sept. 15, 2018. The singer will return to Lucas Oil Stadium for three sold-out “Eras Tour” shows in November.
“It’s something that has been very popular,” said Carrie Stillions, Middle Way House’s (MWH) executive director. “We’re very grateful.”Melissa Colman organized the fundraiser. Colman is a local nurse practitioner and MWH board member who decided in August to use her and her husband’s highly coveted Taylor Swift “Eras Tour” Indianapolis tickets to support the nonprofit.

“Since getting involved with the board and seeing our fundraising needs, I just started thinking, ‘What if we donated our tickets?’” Colman said.

The raffle ran from August to Oct. 1 and raised a total of $29,730 – more than MWH raised in all fundraising events in 2022, according to its public IRS filing. Combined with October’s “Wrapped in Love” event, which annually puts hand-knit tree sweaters up around Bloomington to raise funds and awareness for MWH and domestic violence, Stillions said the raffle has provided an essential injection for the crisis center.

“Between the raffle and our sponsorships, this will be our biggest fundraiser of the year,” Stillions said.

The dollars also come at a critical time. Domestic crisis and sexual violence shelters like MWH are seeing a significant shortfall in government contributions as funding for the Victims of Crime Act (VOCA), which provides financial assistance to victims of crime through compensation programs and grants to victim service organizations like MWH, dries up.

‘I thought that Middle Way House was this unshakeable institution’

Enacted by Congress in 1983, VOCA provides grants to domestic violence shelters and service providers, with allocations made to each state. But in recent years, money coming into the Crime Victims Fund, a pool of money funded by the prosecution of crimes, has fallen significantly, owing both to a decrease in prosecution and an increase in national demand.

Middle Way House Executive Director Carrie Stillions poses in the courtyard of the facility on Friday, April 7, 2023.
In Indiana, VOCA funding has reduced by 42% in three years, from approximately $29 million in 2022 to about $16 million in 2024. Across the country, VOCA funds are down by approximately 40%.

“Unless something changes, we’re going to see that funding continue to deplete,” Stillions said.

Laura Berry, executive director of the Indiana Coalition Against Domestic Violence, which works with domestic violence and crisis centers across the state, said these shortfalls are causing crisis centers to make tough decisions like cutting programs or reducing staff. Early in 2024, MWH announced it would be closing its childcare center, citing funding challenges as a core reason.

“There’s been a dramatic decrease in funding that’s coming in each year for our type of work,” Berry said. “It’s really crippling our operations.”

Berry said this decrease in federal funding has also been occurring in tandem with a national decrease in nonprofit donations and volunteering, a change she attributes to a post-COVID-19 pandemic “donor fatigue.”

“Donors were incredibly generous when COVID started to sustain the operations of essential programming and services,” Berry said. “Since the pandemic, people have embraced their ‘introvert self,’ so I think we’ve struggled to re-engage volunteers to the level that we really need.”

Indiana’s annual Victim of Crime Act (VOCA) allocations have gone down since 2018, as have most states. Source: U.S. Department of Justice
At the same time, Stillions says many in the Bloomington community mistakenly believe that MWH has a steady flow of federal dollars and donations, leading to a gradual decrease in community contributions.

“Middle Way House has been here for so long, and we haven’t really talked about these things, at least in our recent history,” Stillions said. “People just assume that Middle Way House receives so many donor funds, and we couldn’t do it without our donors that do support us. But I think we’re not always in the forefront, because we’ve been here for so long.”

Colman herself had long assumed MWH was perpetually well-funded. It wasn’t until she joined the board of directors, she said, that she started to understand the shifting funding landscape and the threats to MWH’s operations.

“I thought that Middle Way House was this unshakeable institution that must have millions of dollars and be secure,” Colman said. “And I think it will always be here. But we also want to let people know that we’re having these issues.”

Middle Way House hopes to keep fundraising momentum

MWH announced the raffle’s winner on Oct. 3 at its annual “Wrapped in Love” event at Switchyard Park Pavilion. The tickets ended up going to an area mother and her 13-year-old daughter who purchased their raffle tickets during the final week. Colman said the winner “couldn’t be more excited” when Colman gave her the news on the phone.

“It was adorable. She was over the moon,” said Colman. “She said she was doing the happy dance with her daughter.”

As the buzz of the raffle wears off, Colman and Stillions hope to keep the momentum going and try to make up the gap in grant funding with community donations. A large part of that, Colman says, is continuing to raise awareness for what MWH does.

“When I was asking people if they wanted to join the raffle to support Middle Way House, it was astounding the number of people who were like, ‘What’s Middle Way House?’ A lot of people still aren’t aware of what Middle Way House does,” Colman said. “We have such a large, changing population, with our college students especially, and they don’t know the amazing things Middle Way House does.”

While crisis center advocates lobby Congress for increased aid and legislation to supplement and sustain depleting VOCA funds, Colman and Stillions hope to draw attention to MWH’s work and the need for community support in maintaining the shelter, housing and crisis center operations.

“I don’t want anyone to think we’re not grateful for this fundraiser – it was an amazing fundraiser,” Colman said. “But I don’t want anyone to think that because we raised $30,000 that we’re golden. That doesn’t even cover one payroll for Middle Way House.”

At the “Wrapped in Love” event, MWH announced a matching campaign, supported by an anonymous donor, that will match up to $50,000 in donations.

Even as the Taylor Swift “era” of fundraising ends, Stillions hopes the community will continue to show support for a Bloomington institution during a time of increased need.

“It’s become a lot more challenging to maintain all of our programming, and we just need the community’s support more than ever to help us maintain what we’ve built,” Stillions said.