Yet Another United Way Story - this time from Orlando

[eisely]

Based on this and similar stories it appears that United Way needs the Boy Scouts more than the Boy Scouts needs United Way. See the details towards the end of the story.

 

It is sad that zealots opposed to Scouting are so willing to "destroy the village in order to save it," to borrow a famous quote from the Viet Nam war. One of the major arguments for United Way as a concept is efficiency in fund raising, by keeping the fund raising costs as a percent of funds raised very low. United Way was also a good deal for employers because they could enter a program of charitable payroll deductions with only one agency, and not get hit from multiple directions. Also hurt by the zealots' campaign against scouting are smaller deserving charities such as one mentioned in this story that cannot mount large fund raising campaigns of their own.

 

Oh well. Friends of Scouting, here we come.

 

_________________

 

United Way digs in as challenges mount

 

By David Damron | Sentinel Staff Writer

Posted September 10, 2001

 

The Heart of Florida United Way's annual campaign opens Thursday to a set of circumstances its leaders prayed would never converge.

 

It is, in essence, a triple-witching hour for Central Florida's largest charitable-giving pool:

 

 

The United Way is facing increased competition for worker dollars. More companies are giving their employees a wider choice of charities rather then granting the United Way a monopoly in workplace giving.

 

 

A tumbling economy leaves workers -- who give 80 cents of every dollar the United Way raises -- uncertain about the future of their paychecks. And charities funded by the United Way find themselves facing more need than they can accommodate.

 

 

Bruises still linger from a bitter fight with the Boy Scouts of America over the Scouts' ban on gays. After the Scouts refused to sign an anti-discrimination pact, the local United Way restricted money to the Scouts by passing along only dollars that donors specifically earmark to the group -- a move that angered many of the Scouts' traditional backers.

 

Such a one-two-three punch could have a big impact on a charity that in the past two decades never failed to raise more money than the year before .

 

Could this be the year the organization doesn't go higher?

 

"I just don't know," said Matt Zavadsky, kickoff chairman for the 2001 campaign. "There are some real challenges this year."

 

2001 campaign on horizon

 

The organization, which serves Orange, Seminole and Osceola counties, will announce its goal for 2001 on Thursday. Last year, the United Way raised $20.6 million in 125,000 donations from businesses and individuals in the three counties.

 

While the United Way faces an unenviable collection of circumstances as it launches the campaign, leaders say there are signs the troubles can be overcome.

 

Zavadsky, the CEO of the Health Council of East Central Florida, said corporate leaders stepped up in recent months when it was apparent that raising more funds is as difficult as ever. He's confident employees will react the same way.

 

In the typical cheerleading style of a fund-raiser, Zavadsky said: "These challenges are not insurmountable."

 

They just look that way sometimes.

 

Chief among them is the number of choices more workers have for the dollars they give to charity.

 

AAA, based in Heathrow, and Siemens Corp. in Orlando opened campaigns at their companies to other charities last year. This year, several of the region's top public and private employers followed suit, including the City of Orlando, Orange County Public Schools, Universal Orlando and Seminole County government.

 

Time-share mogul and major United Way contributor David Siegel even created a charitable foundation within his Westgate Resorts for employees to consider in addition to the United Way. His employees gave $500,000 to the United Way last year.

 

Some heated competition

 

Those developments mean the United Way no longer has a monopoly on plugging for money in the workplace.

 

And, some say, having the option could prompt some workers to give money elsewhere if they have felt pressured by previous United Way campaigns.

 

It is, said Kevin Ronnie, a field director for the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy watchdog group, a chance to blow off steam.

 

United Way campaigns "were very coercive," Ronnie said. "And nobody wants to talk about it."

 

Zavadsky said it may have been true years ago, but now the organization uses a "soft" request approach.

 

Beryl Davis, an audit director for the city of Orlando who helped survey employees on whether the city's charity campaign should be opened up to more options, said it came down to choice.

 

The city allowed America's Charities, a group emerging around the country as the chief competitor to the United Way, into its campaign, along with the Community Foundation of Central Florida, United Arts and Community Health Charities of Florida.

 

"I haven't made a firm decision on which one I'm going to go with," Davis said. "But it does excite me to have these options."

 

To battle the competition, United Way simply plans to trumpet louder all the good work being done with its donations.

 

United Way funded 74 health and human-service agencies last year in Orange, Seminole and Osceola counties. That amounted to 435,000 lives being "touched," as the agency puts it.

 

They want donors to know that the money they donate locally goes right back into local charities. And the charities are annually reviewed to see whether the money is spent properly. Not all other charities, such as America's Charities, can claim that.

 

Year-round campaign

 

To get this message out beyond just the few intense months of the campaign, United Way board members approved a $100,000 year-round publicrelations campaign, a first-of-its-kind move.

 

While they mount that campaign, United Way leaders also worry about the effect the nation's struggling economy could have.

 

That in itself is a double-whammy, with more workers worried about their jobs, and longer lines expected at agencies the United Way supports.

 

Charitable donations last year experienced the slowest rate of growth in five years, according to a May study by Giving USA, a journal on charitable-giving published by Indiana University's Center on Philanthropy.

 

The publication's annual survey noted that giving rose just 3.2 percent last year, in inflation-adjusted numbers. They estimate folks dipped into their own pockets to the tune of $203.5 billion nationwide. But that was before the stock market took a hit and economic growth stalled.

 

"It's probably not the best time in the world to be out getting new donors," said Giving USA managing editor Melissa S. Brown.

 

Has it blown over?

 

Another issue United Way leaders acknowledge they can't control is reaction to the fracas over the Boy Scouts. It is, they said, over and done.

 

As it ended, all but one of the 74 local agencies that receive money from the United Way signed non-discrimination pledges. In those pledges, the agencies promised not to exclude gays and lesbians in the delivery of services, but hiring practices were not addressed.

 

The Scouts were the lone holdout.

 

Because this all played out last fall, this will be the first year the Scouts can receive only the money that donors specifically earmark for them. United Way's Community Care fund, a general pool of money, won't send money to the Scouts this year.

 

Support for the Scouts was so strong last year that earmarked pledges to the Scouts tripled to $336,000, or $2,000 more than the group had sought from the United Way.

 

United Way officials hope that storm is blowing over.

 

"I think time will heal this issue," said Norm Levine, United Way's distribution-fund chairman.

 

Levine hopes donors understand that the Scouts represent only a small part of the United Way's reach. Much of the money collected in the annual drive is channeled to smaller, lesser-known groups. The Lisa Merlin House is a classic example.

 

The group, which treats homeless women recovering from alcohol or drug addiction, runs on a budget of about $500,000, $25,000 of it from the United Way.

 

"At this very moment, I don't know how we would replace those funds," Merlin House official Mary Kay Villaverde said. "To have their support is a coup for us."

 

There are some positive signals for the 2001 campaign, United Way executives say.

 

More than three dozen new companies agreed to run a workplace campaign this year, officials say.

 

Kathryn Hoeck, who chairs the United Way board of directors, said she is "extremely optimistic" about the campaign. "As long as we continue to educate our donors on why the United Way is a good investment," she said, "that will take care of itself."

 

David Damron can be reached at ddamron@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5311.

 

[OldGreyEagle]

After reading the comments that the Rev Jerry Falwell made about gays, and lesbians and the ACLU being to blame for tuesday's attack and that God had lifted the protective curtain from our country, it strikes me that maybe its time to let homosexuals in Boy Scouts if for no other reason just to cheese him off

[eisely]

Falwell's remarks were at the least embarrassing to Christians everywhere. Like many I am concerned about the decadence I see around me, but none of the people that Falwell talked about were at the controls of those airliners. He owes a lot of people an apology.

[Rooster7]

I'm NOT defending Falwell's comments. I don't even know what he said except what was alluded to in the previous posts. I will say this though...Many Christians believe God has blessed and protected America as result of our country's devotion to God and His word. Many also believe that God may lift his protection (or already has) if our country continues down its current path. There is biblical precedence for these beliefs. This does not nullify what the terrorists have done. It doesn't remove guilt from them. Nor does it mean anyone deserved to die at their hands.

[OldGreyEagle]

Read this: http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/09/14/Falwell.apology/

 

hate is hate

[eisely]

Jerry Falwell was never my personal cup of tea. I have only seen him on TV occasionally on various national talk shows where he was presumably on his best behavior. But he did apologize for his recent remarks, and I think we ought to take that at face value. Disregarding Falwell as the messenger for a moment, it is indisputable that the ACLU and the US Supreme Court have had a tremendous impact on a number of issues ranging from abortion to school prayer to freedom of expression to pornography to limitations on police investigative powers. Some of these issues matter a great deal to a lot of people, and just because they feel strongly on these issues does not automatically make them bigots. When I look at where the country was 50 years ago on these issues, and where the courts have led us, I am not at all sure that things have improved that much, even in areas where I agree with the policy. I don't care for Falwell's pronouncements, and his declaration about the gay tele-tubbies a few years ago was laughable. But some of his criticisms deserve a fair hearing. In the meantime I will accept his apology as at least as sincere as the apologies we have gotten from Bill Clinton and Jesse Jackson for their various escapades.

[eisely]

I have pasted in below an op ed piece from today's Wall Street Journal about the Falwell fiasco. It is not just political liberals who were upset with Falwell's remarks.

__________

 

Falwell and Folly

America's sins didn't bring down the World Trade Center.

 

BY TIMOTHY GEORGE

Friday, September 21, 2001 12:01 a.m. EDT

 

In ordinary times, it would be unthinkable for a sitting president to criticize a theological statement made by a religious leader. We don't expect politicians to fault preachers for interpreting the oracles of faith. Yet that's just what happened last Friday, when the Rev. Jerry Falwell, en route to the National Cathedral to attend the national prayer service, received a call from the White House telling him that the president disagreed with his remarks about the tragedy of Sept. 11 and found them "inappropriate."

 

And inappropriate they were. As we all know now, Mr. Falwell--with the assent of Pat Robertson, with whom he was conversing--singled out pagans, abortionists, feminists, gays and lesbians, the ACLU and other assorted groups, blaming them for the attacks in New York and Washington. "I point the finger in their face and say, 'You helped this happen.'"

 

Thus in a moment of collective mourning, as the president was calling for unity, one of his supporters, a man of the cloth, had made one of the most hurtful and divisive comments imaginable--and one of the least defensible, morally and theologically speaking.

 

It is one of the essential understandings of Christian belief that man possesses free will, and that evil deeds are chosen by man in defiance of God. This defiance is, of course, the central drama of the Garden of Eden, and it is repeated, tragically, throughout the biblical narrative. For Christians, it is precisely a sinful, defiant will that finds redemption in Christ and his suffering. To put it another way: The murder of innocents on Sept. 11, insofar as it is given to us to understand such things, was not directly caused by God but by man rebelling against God. To equate this act with divine judgment--as if the Lord had conspired with the attackers to sacrifice the workers in the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and the passengers in the four airplanes--violates the most cherished tenets of the Christian faith.

 

Like Mr. Falwell, I am a Baptist minister and an evangelical Christian. Many of the trends that he opposes in our culture I oppose too. But my heart sank when I heard his words, for I knew that, aside from their wrongheadedness, they would reinforce the worst stereotype of conservative Christianity, and they would be used to justify inane comparisons between Bible-believing Christians and the hate-filled zealots who carried out the attack. On many counts, Mr. Falwell should have known better. (He has since apologized.)

 

This is not to say that we should think of the events of last week apart from the judgment of God. This theme is woven into the holy texts, from the Hebrew prophets to Jesus himself. "For three transgressions and for four I will not turn back my wrath," the Lord said to the prophet Amos. But there are two considerations to be kept in mind, both lost in Mr. Falwell's comments, if cataclysmic events inspire in us a desire for self-examination or a need to interpret the evil we have witnessed.

First, the Lord's judgments include God's own people. It is not "them" (sinners) against "us" (saints). No, we are all in this together, and none of us is free from sin. Second, there is a mystery to evil that none of us can fathom, including those of us who believe that God is all-powerful and infinitely loving. In the face of evil, we affirm that God's love will ultimately triumph, as it did in the cross of Christ. We accept this by faith, but how it is worked out in the tragedies of history we do not know.

 

Perhaps more than anyone else in American history, Abraham Lincoln understood this principle. "The Almighty had his own purposes," Lincoln said in his Second Inaugural, contemplating the slaughter of the Civil War. He urged his countrymen to act "with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right."

 

As a scolded Mr. Falwell arrived at the National Cathedral, America was listening to another Baptist minister, the Rev. Billy Graham, who declared that God cares for us, whatever our ethnic, religious or political backgrounds. God is sovereign, yes, and he is also a God of love and mercy in the midst of suffering. "My prayer today," Mr. Graham said, "is that we will feel the loving arms of God wrapped around us and know in our heart that he will never forsake us as we trust in him."

 

Both of these men have done much good in their lives, but last week, on that day, it was Billy, not Jerry, who spoke truthfully and, no less important, said what we all needed to hear.

 

Mr. George is dean of Beeson Divinity School of Samford University, in Birmingham, Ala., and executive editor of Christianity Today.