ORLANDO, Fla. — After Black Friday and Cyber Monday comes Giving Tuesday, a day designed to focus holiday spending on donations to charitable organizations. But some nonprofits aren’t confident the day will boost their financials.

Giving USA reports in 2022, Americans gave less than the year before. Adjusted for inflation, the report says giving dropped 10.5% from 2021 – only the fourth time in 40 years charitable donations dropped from the year prior. 

Eric Camarillo, the founder of Service and Love Together, or SALT Outreach, says his nonprofit is getting squeezed between fewer donations and an increase in people seeking their services.

“People have less disposable income, or income they are allotted to giving, and we’re seeing that,” Camarillo said. “And with increased demand for our services, it’s hard to keep up.”

Camarillo says smaller nonprofits like his don’t have the money to run year-long fundraising efforts. That's why he's hoping Giving Tuesday can help make up some financial ground and SALT can get back on track with meeting the needs of the area’s homeless.

“We’ve seen a rise in seniors, a rise in young adults and youth, we’ve seen a rise in single moms,” he said. “They just can’t keep up with the rise in costs of living, the rise in the cost of rent.”

Camarillo says due to the financial crunch, SALT has had to reduce its service time by one hour each day – making it harder to serve as many people like Paula M. Johnson.

Johnson says after her landlord evicted her, leaving her homeless, she had no family to turn to. She says her closest relative, her brother, was killed in a car crash.

“I don’t feel like I would’ve been on the street if he would’ve been here, I’m certain of it,” Johnson said.

Johnson spent the last five months, including some of the sweltering hot summer, living on the streets of Orlando. She says she’s never liked asking for help, but she eventually sought help from SALT, which gave her a place to shower and do laundry. And SALT just recently helped her find a new home.

“I would think about my parents and they would tell me if you have to ask, ask, don’t be ashamed to ask for help, and that’s what I would do,” Johnson said. “I mean, I would break down and say I need your guys help and they would write letters – I mean big time letters.”

Thanks to SALT, Johnson says for the first in a long time, she’s thankful to have a place to call home.

“I’ll tell you what – I looked up to the lord and I said thank you, lord,” she said.

The nonprofit is making it easy for people to donate. They can simply text Dream Big Now to 44321.