CHENANGO COUNTY – Over the last year, the United Way has been reforming its programs in an effort to increase accountability to the community. As part of that process, the organization recently released its 2006 End of Year Community Impact Report.
The United Way began the new program in 2006, asking community organizations to submit applications requesting the program funding they wanted. The applications were looked over by a team of volunteers and graded based on their content and the proposed benefit to the community. Once funding was distributed, the United Way began working to guarantee that the goals proposed in the initial application had been met.
“It’s important for the community to understand we’re collecting data and holding the organizations responsible. We’ve compared the actual data to what the group said they were going to achieve. The results were surprisingly good,” said United Way Executive Director Elizabeth Monaco.
For 2006, the United Way collected both mid-year and end of year reports, and according to Monaco, the mid-year reports left room for improvement. Julie Heymans, an intern from Colgate University, met with the organizations, collected the data and explained where improvements could be made. “The end of year reports showed a dramatic improvement,” said Monaco. “A good percentage of organizations exceeded the goals they originally set.”
Organizations in the four focus areas – opportunities for children and youth, poverty issues of housing and hunger, the aging population and access to health care – exceeded their initial goals. In the area of opportunities for children and youth, organizations like the PAL Family Resource Center, provided by the Mothers and Babies Perinatal Network far exceeded their initial goals. Originally, PAL hoped that 140 parents would attend classes and programs at the PAL Center and 120 of them would say they felt more confident in their parenting skills after attending. The organization actually saw 215 parents and had 100 percent say they felt more confident. In addition they had 57 new families register and begin utilizing the PAL Center.
In the focus area of poverty issues of housing and hunger, other organizations, such as Disaster Services through the Southern Tier Chapter of the American Red Cross saw an increase in the number of people they helped due to the flooding in June and November of 2006. The initial goal of the Red Cross was to respond to 100 percent of notified disaster cases. They achieved their goal, giving disaster assistance to 231 Chenango County Residents, an increase of 191 percent from 2005.
Many of the organizations who received United Way funding are impressed with the way the competitive funding request process has worked so far. “The RFP process is extremely well done. I’m impressed that the board members took the time to learn the process, and they have done an extraordinary job with the review process,” said Sharon Chesna, executive director of Mothers and Babies Perinatal Network. The Perinatal Network is almost completely grant funded, and in her work, Chesna deals with seven different counties. “The Chenango United Way is ahead of the game,” said Chesna, pointing out that the Chenango branch has been one of the first to move forward with the United Way’s new process. “For them to take the steps suggested by the National United Way is quite a bold move in our region.”
Now that the United Way has a full year’s worth of data, they will use the comparison between the expected results and the actual results as they are deciding which programs to fund next fall. The organizations will have to include information on how United Way funding will build on previous outcomes.
“A strong track record will be taken into consideration when it comes to funding requests, and a low score could negatively impact our decision,” said Monaco.
The United Way is trying to show their donors how United Way funding is impacting the community. “We’re holding organizations accountable and reporting our findings back to the community, so they can understand how their donations are being used and see that we are achieving results,” said Monaco.