Community support powered United Way to success

By Margaret Clark
Originally published 02/13/2011 in The Greenville News (subscription required).

From the merger with Hands On Greenville last winter, to the program investment process in the spring, to the record-breaking $14.7 million community campaign this fall, to the $1.3 million in new grant monies, 2010 has been a milestone year for United Way of Greenville County.

While we’ve experienced many wonderful changes and seen great progress over the course of the year, we remain steadfast in our commitment to serving our community in two important ways.

First, we are working to meet the immediate, essential needs of people in Greenville County. We do this through our support of 86 programs offered by the 57 local partner agencies that provide direct services to the community. Whether it’s helping individuals find food and shelter in a time of crisis or providing medical care or educational services to those in need, our partner agencies do inspiring work, showing people every day that Greenville County is a community with compassion.

2010 was the first year in a new three-year program funding cycle. In these challenging economic times, when nonprofit human service agencies are seeing the demand for their services increase while their budgets are being tightened, we opened the application process up to the community and received a record number of applications. This made for an extremely competitive selection process. Our evaluation team volunteers donated more than 640 hours of time to review more than 100 program proposals.

At the end of this rigorous evaluation process, 86 programs were selected, including 15 innovative programs which had never before received United Way funding. All of these programs are essential to providing necessary services and support to assist individuals, families and neighborhoods throughout our community who need help right now.

United Way’s second area of emphasis is eliminating future needs by focusing on long-term solutions to three root-cause issues in our community: school readiness, high school graduation and financial stability.

In the area of school readiness, last year we partnered with Greenville First Steps and the SC Department of Social Services ABC Voucher Program to create the Greenville County Early Child Care Scholarship. The program will provide $225,000 over the next three years to help working families access high quality childcare.

In addition to our work with the Graduate Greenville partnership, our work to improve the county’s high school graduation rate included the implementation of an Afterschool Strategic Initiative designed to ensure students have access to quality educational opportunities when school is out.

We saw progress toward our goal of increasing financial stability in the community with two key initiatives. First, United Way coordinated efforts to create the Greenville County Individual Development Account, or IDA, Network. Pooling resources with partners at the Greenville Housing Fund, United Way successfully secured a $600,000 federal grant that will fund an innovative savings program designed to help low-income individuals save towards the purchase of a long-term asset, such as a home, higher education, or to start or expand a small business.

Second, United Way received a grant totaling $286,000 for the next three years to place 27 AmeriCorps members in the community. The members are currently serving with local nonprofits to advance financial stability initiatives, ranging from tax preparation and financial literacy projects, to career coaching for students and grassroots community development. Already, these AmeriCorps members have provided 12,000 hours of service towards making our financial stability goals a reality.

Of course, accomplishing these long-term goals requires resources – resources we would not have without the generous support of the community during our annual campaigns. And this year the community opened its hearts, as the campaign reached a record of $14.7 million, a 5 percent increase over 2009.

On behalf of the United Way board, I want to express our deepest gratitude to the donors and volunteers who made the 2010 community campaign such a resounding success. Capably led by Campaign Chair Dick Wilkerson, the record-breaking result reflects the hard work and generous spirit of thousands of donors and volunteers.

For our part, United Way promises to be careful stewards of the resources you have generously shared with this community as we continue to help individuals and families in need right now, and work to prevent future need by building long-term cycles of success.

As my term as chair has come to an end and I hand over the reins to the capable hands of long-time United Way volunteer Howard Boyd, my hope is that you will continue to be involved year-round in the work that helps drive this community forward. I encourage you to stay engaged in the mission of United Way. Pick a project and volunteer with Hands On Greenville this spring. Join us on Facebook. Donate school supplies to students in need this summer. Be a leadership giver next fall. Add your voice to the issues that matter to you and lend a hand to your neighbor in need.

(Margaret Clark was the 2010 chair of the United Way of Greenville County Board of Trustees. For more information about how to get involved in United Way’s work, visit www.unitedwaygc.org.)