United Way

Introduction

The United Way, a nonprofit organization founded and focused on fundraising for community social programs. Fundraising is very vital to nonprofit organizations that many times lead these organizations into the losing vision of their intended mission. Raising funds by any means is essential, but doing good things with that money is what donors want to see.

Discussion

A decade ago, the United Way embarked on a self-evaluation to ensure that funding raised was used as intended. Although the new mission set by the United Way might not present an overall example for every organization, however, certain areas deserve further thought:1.Increasing community commitment and involvement by working with community leaders establishing shared goals and direction for local communities (Varchaver 01).

Does the current United Way model and mission seem practical with donors wanting to be close to their funded causes, or is a new strategic direction needed. Since then, the United Way has shifted its program focus to community based actions; however, fundraising is still critical to impacting the community regardless but not the main objective. The United Way has a new focus on improving accountability and has yet to determine if such a move has yielded a positive impact on fundraising efforts. From 2005 to 2006, nearly a 50% drop in donations suggests a disturbing trend that the program may not be effective. The economic downturn certainly plays a major role in contributions across all nonprofit organizations. Still, the United Way has implemented improved procedures for corporate governance labeled “Standards of Excellence” campaign and has produced results enabling the United Way to top $4 billion in donations and become the United States largest charity.

Organizational Model Differences

The United Way is perhaps one of the most well known non-profit organizations in the world; they have helped millions of people that are in need. That does not mean that things at the United Way are perfect in any way shape or form. Historically, the United Way's business model had been one of the loosest organizations of its kind, meaning that almost all of their power resided at the local level with each chapter running on their own. (Tokasz 1) This way of operating did not work and it seemed to breed corruption and embezzlement, which is what, happened in the early 1990's. These scandals hurt the profits and fundraising ability of the United Way and hurt the company's image dearly.

It was time for a change and that change needed to happen as soon as possible, that is where Betty Beene came in. Beene tried to move away from the autonomy of letting each local chapter have all the power and tried to centralize the United Way. This move was met with mixed feelings, some felt that it is what the United Way needed and others felt that things had been running fine so far why change it. Beene tried to streamline the processing of United Way pledge forms wanting to make it more efficient, but Beene's biggest opponents felt that she was trying to ...