CHENANGO COUNTY – After receiving requests for more than $900,000 in funding from 32 area programs, the $488,876 raised during this year’s Chenango United Way Campaign is simply not enough to fund every request this year.

While the United Way has not yet released the list of programs that will be funded this year, Executive Director Elizabeth Monaco explained that the competition for United Way dollars is getting more difficult every year and without more money raised, deciding which programs to fund is going to become more and more difficult.

Last year, 31 area agencies requested a total of $668,000. Just one year later, 32 agencies requested $921,000. Program funding is based on a competitive application process. Each organization requesting money fills out a Request for Proposal form, which is scored by a group of trained volunteers using an objective scoring rubric. After working extensively with the agencies filing the forms, Monaco explained that the applications were getting better and better, making the decisions even more difficult.

Last year, the cut off score for funding was around a 70. Applications with scores lower than that were not funded. Those above were funded in a percentage equivalent to their scores. “Because of all the technical assistance we offered this year, the scores went up drastically. This year the passing grade was a 95,” Monaco explained. Although many applicants had drastically improved their scores, the CUW director explained there simply was not enough money to fund all of the requests.