Updated at 9:21 p.m.

Citing “significant financial strain,” Circus Smirkus has sent an email to its supporters asking for donations to bridge a “short-term funding gap that must be addressed immediately” in order to continue operations and avoid bankruptcy.

“We want to be transparent — this is a moment of real uncertainly around the future of Smirkus,” reads the email, signed by board president Kate Hayes and executive and artistic director Rachel Schiffer.

In a follow-up email, the pair told Seven Days that the organization needs to raise $400,000 by the end of the year to avoid bankruptcy. “Early responses to our fundraising and outreach campaign have been positive,” they wrote.

In addition to summer camps for kids at its Greensboro headquarters, the 38-year-old Circus Smirkus operates what it says is the only tented traveling youth circus in the country. Each summer about 30 “troupers,” selected by audition, rehearse in Greensboro for about three weeks before caravanning to nearly 20 New England towns. Performers this year ranged from 12 to 18 years old. Families pay to join the tour, a beloved tradition for many.

Responding to a request for further details, Hayes and Schiffer said the circus suffered significant revenue loss when it canceled an “unprecedented” 12 shows on its Big Top Tour this summer. Eleven of those cancellations followed the July 22 rigging accident in which an 18-year-old aerialist was injured when he fell during a performance in Massachusetts.

“As an arts non-profit in the Northeast, we rely heavily on earned revenue and philanthropic efforts, and when we experience significant revenue shortfalls in a short amount of time, it impedes our ability to course correct in real time to remain solvent and meet our financial obligations,” Hayes and Schiffer said in their joint email response to Seven Days.

Circus Smirkus has not been fined or sued as a result of the accident and “is appropriately and adequately insured for the scope of programming” it offers, Hayes and Schiffer wrote.

The nonprofit has lost money in each of the past three fiscal years, according to its public tax forms, known as 990s. In fiscal year 2024, it reported a $144,000 loss, which represented 5 percent of its revenue, while listing assets worth $2.7 million.

Lost ticket revenue this year is the primary cause of the organization’s current financial straits, but the circus also shouldered increased operational expenses and high tariffs on a tent it imported from Italy in the spring, Hayes and Schiffer said.

Circus Smirkus Big Top Tour in Greensboro in June Credit: Mary Ann Lickteig

The September 16 email, with the subject line “Help Us Turn a Challenge into a Defining Moment,” invited “Circus Smirkus Friends and Family” to “Shape the Magic Moving Forward.”

It made no direct mention of the July accident but said, “we’re beginning a strategic reassessment of how we operate, deliver our programs, and allocate our resources … We’re not simply weathering a storm, we’re charting a better course forward.”

On Friday evening, after this story was published, Schiffer sent another email to supporters to say $100,000 had been raised toward the goal, a figure she called “an encouraging start.”

“We are working with a pared down staff to support ongoing operations and relying on our board to help fill critical need gaps,” she continued.