United Way charities across the country are converting to community impact organizations, cutting administrative costs while at the same time embracing the need to offer direct services in critical cases.
“Our local United Way has been migrating from just a fundraising organization to a community impact organization for the last three years.” says Kyle Holley, development director of United Way of Santa Rosa.
“First, we needed to review the fundraising campaign for the last three years, then we looked at expenses lowering them, and now we are looking at our investment of the charitable dollars into the community in a way that will take some pressure off of our school district and our county; filling gaps they can no longer fill for people in need.” For many, United Ways have been misunderstood never really understanding the results of the contributions and how much good the dollars do. For example, in the last three years, locally the United Way has raised leveraged the local contributions to achieve $1,863,000 community impact.
The United Way of Santa Rosa County is just releasing its 2013 community impact statement for the 2013 year.
“We wanted to time the delivery of last year’s impact to show donors as we go into the holiday season the value of their gift. We recognize this is the time of the year when we all want to believe we have made the world a better place through giving, advocacy, and volunteering.” Holley shared.
The United Way Community Impact report shows the $300,000 raised in 2013, $200,000 went to Direct Service to Santa Rosa residents, and the other $100,000 donated to area charities was successfully leverage to bring in $289,240. The report further shares the procurement of $156,000 in state grants to support the homeless population. Adding volunteer mobilization and supply drives, valued at $169,170, yields a total community impact of $814,410.
“We have found the services supported through United Way by our donors touches over 48,000 residents almost one third of our population.”, shares Anja Machado, communications officer. “We have just received some disaster recovery funds from the Florida Disaster Fund and are in the process of procuring our county’s allocation of FEMA food and shelter money as part of our ongoing effort to ensure our share of regional, state and federal money comes into Santa Rosa County.”
Going forward, United Way will continue to release information on community impact of its direct service programs and streamline the evaluation of community needs.
“We know a great place to work is closely with our school district and county leadership to meet needs they cannot fill. We appreciate the contributions the staff of the school district and Santa Rosa County employees make to our United Way, they are very hardworking giving people who see that others are hurting and contribute to make a big difference,” said Holley. For more information on Untied Way of Santa Rosa County, call the United Way office at 623-4507.
This article originally appeared on Santa Rosa Press Gazette: United way of Santa Rosa County to mark and measure community impact