Food Lion co-founder Ralph Ketner was clever to come up with the “1776” connection for this fall’s Rowan County United Way campaign. Ketner gave $3,000 above and beyond his pledge to raise the United Way’s goal from $1,773,000 to $1,776,000 ó a number that would stick in people’s minds.
But the number that means the most in this campaign is 7.9. Tuck that one away in your memory, too ó 7.9.
That’s the percentage of proceeds spent on administration and fundraising in the Rowan County United Way. Think of it this way: 92.1 cents of every $1 donated to the United Way in Rowan goes to the 17 member agencies. Very little goes into the United Way office itself, which has only three and a half staff members. People in Rowan County know how to pinch a penny ó something in the region’s Scotch-Irish heritage just makes us that way ó and the Rowan County United Way is no different.
The Charlotte-area United Way made headlines last year over its executive director’s huge compensation package. That turned off donors, and United Way agencies in that area got hit with the consequences ó budget cuts. The United Way of Central Carolinas, as that group is called, supports 98 agencies and more than 200 programs in Cabarrus, Mecklenburg, Anson and Union counties and the Mooresville-Lake Norman area. After a change in executive director and its board of directors, the Central Carolinas United Way is trying to rebuild confidence.
The Rowan County United Way is completely separate from the Central Carolinas organization ó different staff, different offices, different board of directors. Other than sharing the name, “United Way,” it had no connection to the controversy in Charlotte.
What it is strongly connected to is the Salisbury-Rowan community. The Rowan United Way’s roots go back for decades, and it has a history of service ó both in channeling funds to the agencies and in coordinating services during a crisis, such as the closing of the Pillowtex plant in 2003.
The 17 agencies who get funds through the Rowan United Way campaign are familiar to most county residents ó about 80 percent of us are touched by one or more of them in some way. They include the Rowan County Literacy Council, American Red Cross, The ARC/Rowan, Rowan Vocational Opportunities, Boy Scouts , Communities in Schools, Girl Scouts, YMCA, Rowan County Rescue Squad, The Salvation Army, Abundant Living Adult Day Care, Rufty-Holmes Senior Center, Meals on Wheels, Adolescent & Family Enrichment Council, Family Crisis Council, Rowan County Youth Services Bureau and the 211 information service.
As you consider your support for United Way, know that the agency is efficient and accountable. Less than 8 percent of its funds go toward administration and fundraising. The rest goes to the agencies that are serving your friends and neighbors, and even yourself.