The applications and accompanying multi-year budgets, IRS 990s, and audited financial statements are reviewed by teams of community volunteers who identify questions unanswered by the documentation or areas of potential concern. They then meet with Board and Staff members from their assigned agencies to ask questions and decide how each agency’s request answers the following questions:
With limited resources and significant needs, it makes sense to fund programs that will make an immediate impact on individuals and families and/or result in a long-term impact on the community as a whole.
Using budgets, IRS documents, and audited financial statements, the teams review how agencies used their resources in the previous two years as well as how they plan to use them in the coming year to determine the efficiency of each operation.
Good people and good intentions are just not good enough. All good investments provide returns, and in the case of non-profits, those returns are in the form of lives improved and lives saved. To prove that the services they provide are effective, agencies provide measurable and documentable outcomes that they have achieved over the past year and set outcome goals for the next.
Following their agency visits, the allocation teams meet again to develop their recommendations for funding. Team Captains then meet for one last time to present those recommendations and negotiate the final allocations based on the amount available to distribute.
While we might receive pledges approaching $2 million, we know that we won’t have nearly that much to allocate to our partner agencies. Following are some of the reasons why:
A frequent concern expressed to our staff is how much United Way of Morgan County pays to United Way Worldwide for the use of the name and logo, training, and national advertising seen most prominently through a partnership with the National Football League.
In 2018, we will pay nearly $19,000 in dues to United Way Worldwide. And because we are a member in good standing, Morgan County is eligible for a Federal Grant administered through United Way Worldwide and paid through the Emergency Food and Shelter Program (EFSP). Last year, that grant totaled $58,000, and the year before $52,000.
Joining United Way’s President on our local EFSP Board are representatives of the American Red Cross, Salvation Army, National Council of Churches of Christ, Jewish Federation of North American, Catholic Charities, and the homeless/formerly homeless, along with the Chair of the Morgan County Commission. Together, these Board members review the applications of local charities to allocate the funds received. In 2017 – 2018, the following charities received funding through this program:
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