It’s Not About Meeting a Goal; It’s About Meeting a Need

When people ask me how things are going at Char-Em United Way, they are most interested in how we are coming at meeting our campaign goal. How red is the United Way thermometer?

While we do set an ambitious campaign goal each year, I am more interested in telling the story of the impact we’re having on the community. While we need to reach our goal in order to have the funds to do the work, it is the work we do with the funds that is the important thing.

Char-Em United Way is working to address our community’s most pressing needs for Education, Income and Health services. We do that by supporting effective programs of local non-profit health and human service agencies that meet identified community needs.  We also take the lead to develop, coordinate, and facilitate new programs to meet gaps or emerging needs.

Like all investors, our donors want to be sure that they are getting a good return on their philanthropic investment. We can assure them they are. We carefully review agencies’ programs for proposed impacts; we look at financial and governance information; we require mid-year and year-end reports. All these measures ensure that the funds we invest on our donors’ behalf are making the greatest impact that they can.

Like any investment manager, we aim to be transparent and provide information on the impact those funds make – the community’s “Return on Investment.” We encourage you to read our Community Impact Report.

We kicked off the 2011-2012 Char-Em United Way Campaign last week. Our ambitious goal is $380,000, a 5% increase over last year.  We aim to exceed that goal and earn the $20,000 Frey Foundation challenge grant.  And, because I know you want to know, I’ll tell you we are already at 20% of our goal.

But it’s not about meeting that goal; it’s about how those funds will enable us to meet community needs.  We invite you to join us in meeting that need.