If they were paid for this work, it would be worth tens of thousands of dollars, but instead they do it for free — because they want to help make a real impact on the Roanoke Valley and raise the quality of life for everyone in it.
Seventy-four dedicated community volunteers devoted close to 1500 hours over three months to United Way of Roanoke Valley’s Community Investment Process, when they could have been doing something else for themselves or their families. Instead, they visited 28 partner agencies and interviewed each of their executive directors. They pored over applications for program support and scored them using a rigorous yet fair methodology. Finally, in smaller groups, they hashed out (over innumerable cups of sometimes less than fresh coffee!) exactly which programs should receive more, less, or the same funding as last year, based on how well they had performed on outcome measurements and how clear, necessary, and redundant their missions were. The following are the categories used to allocate funding: Helping Children and Youth Succeed, Strengthening Families, Promoting Quality of Life for Older Adults, and Improving Health and Self-Sufficiency.
Community Investment Process panelists come from all walks of life. They are teachers, lawyers, accountants, homemakers, retirees, ministers, artists, and doctors. Almost all of them donate not just their time and brainpower but also their hard-earned money to United Way of Roanoke Valley. One veteran of the process, Jeff Marks, President of WDBJ Television, was so impressed by how carefully United Way handles donors’ contributions that he joined the Board of Directors of the organization and is now leading the 2010 fundraising effort as Campaign Chair.
Marks is not the only true believer. Kerri Thornton of Carilion Clinic, who has served on the panel for many years and chaired it for the last three, says, “It’s such a great way to see donations turn into real impact in the community and also to see what a good steward United Way is of the people’s generously given money, making sure the programs are doing well and doing what we expect.”
Because of the increased difficulties faced by many in the community these days, United Way’s funding also includes serving basic needs — using a special grant from Bank of America, additional monies raised at BLOOM (a new annual fundraiser), and emergency funding that had been set aside for a rainy day. It’s been pretty rainy lately for a lot of folks. United Way of Roanoke Valley and its dedicated Community Investment volunteers are doing their best to mop that water up as efficiently and effectively as possible, as they hope to help create the greatest possible future for all of us.
This year, the United Way Board of Directors approved an allocation of $2,905,640 from the United Way Impact Fund to support the following programs and community initiatives aligned with United Way’s four impact areas:
Helping Children and Youth Succeed – Total Funding: $888,972
Strengthening Families – Total Funding: $306,869
Improving Health and Self-Sufficiency – Total Funding: $1,449,471
Promoting Quality of Life for Older Adults — Total Funding: $260,327
During the 2009-2010 funding year United Way funding leveraged an additional $4 million to support the community.
By Linda Webb [email protected]