Year in Review 20 25
The NEXT staff and Board started off 2025 welcoming Interim Executive Director Joann Gomez. Thanks to Joann’s tireless efforts, 2025 was a year of transformation and significant progress for the organization. Over the past year, we moved our New York City office space to avoid a significant rent increase, expanded peer delivered syringe access in New York State, renewed efforts to increase the privacy and security upgrades in our technical infrastructure, and recentered our sustainability and fundraising efforts. Despite drastic changes to the harm reduction funding landscape, NEXT succeeded in doing the most with limited resources by streamlining our operations to continue this life-saving work with a small dedicated team. We did all of this while continuing to ship supplies nationally and work with 30+ affiliated programs to expand drug user health services in their communities. We are indebted to our program affiliates for their constant collaboration and commitment to the people we partner to serve.
Over the past year NEXT and our affiliate partners have
• Shipped 54,063 naloxone packages
• Shipped 12,462 full-service packages including 3,365,142 syringes, 72,923 fentanyl test strips, and 78,354 pipes
• Received 5,211 reports of naloxone being used in an opioid overdose incident
About the participants NEXT and our affiliate partners serve
• 55% of NEXT full-service participants are 39 years old or younger
• 55% of NEXT full-service participants are women and 7% identify as gender non-conforming
• 48% of participants report they are homeless or unstably housed
• When enrolling in NEXT’s full-service syringe access program 84% of applicants report that they have reused their own syringes in the past month and 44% report that they have shared used syringes with others in the past month
• 22% of new participants report that they themselves overdosed in the past year and 63% reported that they have witnessed an overdose in the past year
Education to promote drug-user health
New participants in NEXT’s full-service program always receive an informational packet including over a dozen educational materials on topics including safer injection, sharps disposal, and wound care.
NEXT’s efforts to create new and timely educational resource sheets support participants’ health and well-being is one of the ways that we ensure the newest drug user health information is reaching communities of people who use drugs across the country.
Since our founding, NEXT has processed over one quarter million requests for naloxone by mail through our website.
Fundraising and looking forward
NEXT’s capacity to expand our reach has been consistently outpaced by the number of people requesting mail-based services across the country. Fortunately, our successful fundraising efforts in 2025 will enable us to resume accepting new clients for syringe services by mail in California in 2026 and increase the volume of supplies we can offer to our full-service national participants.
Our fundraising goals for 2026 include building support to enroll program participants from our waitlist, resuming new participant enrollments in states where we do not have a partner organization, bringing on an affiliate coordinator to support our 30+ partner programs, and increasing staffing and staff development opportunities. “
Participant Testimonials
“Each
and every package has a handwritten note that means more to me than I can put into words. On top of providing access to the things I need to be clean and safe they also provide resources on harm reduction and techniques for safer injection information to drug treatment when you’re ready. [NEXT has] changed my life all because they cared. For someone who has spent the majority of their life wondering what was wrong with them and why no one seemed to love them, the feeling that someone genuinely cares gave me the will to keep fighting.”
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“In less fortunate places in this country where harm reduction isn’t considered important this program has seriously saved lives and provided peace of mind to those who have no other way to access life saving reversal medications.”
“This program has saved two of my friends’ lives and also prevented us from passing diseases back and forth along with hurting ourselves with old supplies. They can help and not only can it be life changing but it can be life or death.”
“If it weren’t for the service you provide, there would be no way for anyone in this area to get naloxone without going to the hospital and talking to the police. I live in the bible belt... where people think that if they just don’t let drug users buy supplies then they will quit. They also believe that the only way someone should be allowed to get naloxone is to have a doctor prescribe it to them. I also use your supply program (nextdistro.org) and it has honestly been one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen. You have no idea how much good you are doing... especially for people like us.. who have no other way to get clean supplies. So thank you so much! You truly are life savers!”