I have written before on the United Way. The continued degradation of their mission by participating agencies continues. This is just wrong.

The United Way folks should look at their original intent – their original mission. Clearly the purpose was to Unite. Not only to unite social service agencies in their individual missions, but to unite the fund raising activities to eliminate competition and to have a more intentional distribution of limited local dollars.

Today, in my small and economically deprived community, the maximized use of local charitable dollars is more important than ever. There are twenty some agencies that compete for these dollars. Each individual agency mission is relevant and important. No one disputes this.

The local United Way Campaign is under way. At the same time the Food Bank is running a campaign, the YWCA is running a campaign, and the Salvation Army is gearing up for Christmas. The local Community Mental Health Center has denied raises to their employees so they can build a new building – and they are campaigning for local dollars.

If we are to donate individually to these organizations then the United Way has no purpose. We citizens now find ourselves beleaguered by competing agencies – competing for our dollar. Look at us, they say, our mission is more important than the other agency’s mission – give your money to us.

I thought the United Way was supposed to help us more equitably distribute the social service charitable dollars. I thought the United Way was going to help us get the most out of each dollar donated.

The United Way has lost it’s way.

Dad

See Also: On Health Care