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UnitedWay $6 Million Shortfall = Cuts


Midwest Scouter

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As reported today by the Minneapolis Star:

 

With $6 million shortfall, UnitedWay alerts nonprofits they'll be getting less.
Hurt by targeted giving, the TwinCities branch called 150 nonprofits to let them know their funding will be cut.

http://www.startribune.com/hurt-by-targeted-giving-united-way-alerts-nonprofits-they-ll-be-getting-less/419447764

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Not clear is if targeted giving is on the increase, or if folks who normally give to UW's general fund gave less, or the campaigns for new donors did not meet expectation.

 

Either way, a sinking tide grounds all boats.

 

Well, if revenue to UW was down 11% from 2015, but they exceeded their fund raising goal for 2016 (meaning that they intentionally lowered their fund raising goal from 2015), one could presume that targeted giving (giving directly to charities and not to a distributor like UW) was up.

 

The article even said, "more donors were designating specific charities rather than letting United Way decide how to spend their money."

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Not sure why this belongs in Issues and Politics, except that it leaves me free to say that our local United Way stopped funding our BSA council about 15 years ago, over "membership issues".  I am not sure whether the funding has ever been restored,

 

So, NOW it belongs in Issues and Politics.

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Pages are three years old, and 8 years old, respectively.

 

I'm suspecting that over the years, BSA has adapted to Community grants and UW's targeted giving. What they might not get from one, they may get from another. But, where UW does not co-up with BSA, they lose donors who are looking for that organization's name on the UW list. It's like a tech stock fund that doesn't have holdings in someone's pet tech companies. That someone will likely look for another portfolio entirely rather than investing in the fund and buying their pet stock on the side.

 

I think there are also structural shifts: our UW campaign piggy-backed on our payroll system. Now that that's all electronic, folks don't engage the UW as much. (They do engage more, I think, in the corporate day-of-caring opportunities.) But, what that means, I think, is that the in-flow of "general givers" decreases.

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Pages are three years old, and 8 years old, respectively.

 

Right. Then read the BSA annual reports to see that giving was not impacted too greatly nationally. Locally, it hurt some councils but nationally it was not that big of a deal. They just amped up FOS.

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As was this.

 

What I find interesting is that our next-door council that vanished does not seem to have been covered by any of the UW's that withdrew funding, while my council, which survived, overlaps with two of them.  Or, put another way, about two-thirds of my council is covered by UW's that withdrew funding.

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