A gift to the Pension Rights Center is a gift to retirees.

At age 99, Isabel W., a former nurse living in New Jersey, depends on her monthly pension checks to pay her bills. Had it not been for the efforts of former colleagues and the Pension Rights Center, and unprecedented actions by government officials, she and 800 of her former colleagues would have stopped receiving their pensions next month. That's when her pension fund would have run out of money.

Here's the happy story for the holidays.

In 2003, one year before shutting down, the Hospital Center at Orange had won approval to convert its pension plan to a church plan, leaving its workers without the retirement security they had expected. Pension Rights Center staff spent countless hours conducting legal research and meeting with congressional staff and government officials to convince them that this church plan “conversion” was wrong. In the end, all of that hard work paid off. Every former employee of the Hospital Center at Orange will now receive the pension they earned.

This wouldn’t have happened without your support. Your contribution to the Pension Rights Center will allow us to continue working on behalf of those who face threats to their retirement security, whether it is from a church plan “conversion”, a transfer of their federally guaranteed pension to an insurance company, or a proposed reduction in benefits because their city is bankrupt or their pension plan is financially troubled.

This year, when you contribute to the Pension Rights Center, your gift will go twice as far. The Atlantic Philanthropies is providing a dollar-for-dollar match on every contribution made to the Pension Rights Center. This means that your contribution will help us do twice as much.

If you’ve already made your year-end gift to the Pension Rights Center, many thanks. If you haven’t, please consider doing so today. With your support, we will have twice the impact in 2014.