"The light shining through the window near day's end was nearly as tired as the voices of the people scattered around the table.
The volunteers sat in a United Way conference room all day with the future of some of Central Kentucky's most critical social-service programs in their hands — counseling for sexual-assault victims, health care for the destitute and hot meals for the elderly and shut-ins.
They reviewed the statistics, questioned board members and program directors, analyzed the ins and outs of budget line items and demographic trends.
The whole day's work had been leading to this moment. It was time to award the money.
United Way of the Bluegrass recently announced program grants for the 2007-2008 year. People often ask how the United Way funds are allocated. The grants, totaling $4.4 million for health and human service agencies, were not decided by staff members. Instead, they were made based on the scrutiny of dedicated volunteers representing community members and donors. Those community volunteers gathered in our United Way conference room this spring to pore over the data, ask questions and make the required choices.
In past years, United Way funding sessions were not nearly so stringent. They were more subjective. Member agencies focused on "outputs" — the number of people served or the meals or beds provided — rather than "outcomes," the results of those services. A volunteer panel would visit a few agencies, read over their application packets and interview their representatives for about 30 minutes before making the decision whether or not to fund them.
In more recent years, that has all been quietly turned on its head, and United Way has drastically altered the way it awards grants.
United Way has identified the most pressing local needs. We chose to continue to support agencies that meet the community's basic needs such as food, shelter and clothing, while also directing money to programs that serve the needs of the community through collaborative efforts.
Volunteers and staff then devised a rigorous new funding application process. Agencies filled out applications designed to assess how well they are making a lasting impact, meeting the most pressing needs, helping the most people and affecting meaningful community change.
Volunteers in teams, ranging in number from five to seven, reviewed the applications. They spent day-long sessions asking follow-up questions of program representatives, who rotated in and out of the conference room at 30-minute intervals, and made funding recommendations. Our goal is to invest money in the highest-performing programs that meet the most pressing community needs.
The rigorous process takes the emotion out of the funding decisions. The volunteer teams allocate money to the programs that are demonstrating a measurable improvement in the lives of people in our community. Agencies are concerned with how they can best serve their clients and the results of those programs.
The grant process is truly community driven. Volunteers represent the counties where they live and work. They strive to understand the needs of the community and how the distributed funds will help each respective program make strides in addressing the problems facing the region. Currently, there are 13 program grant review teams. Five are in Fayette County with one each in Anderson, Bourbon, Clark, Jessamine, Madison, Montgomery, Scott and Woodford counties.
The volunteer panels are diverse. They include men and women of different ethnicities and backgrounds. They are comprised of corporate CEO's, professors, stay-at-home moms, retirees, bankers and firefighters. Together, there are 65 volunteers who each spent an average of 40 hours training, reviewing grant applications, attending agency presentations and confirming recommendations for grant funding. They are the faces of those who cumulatively give by the millions each year to support charities funded by United Way.
After each volunteer team makes their funding recommendations, the suggestions are presented to each county's board of trustees, the regional community building cabinet and then to the United Way of the Bluegrass board of directors for the final decision. Each of these groups is comprised of volunteers from throughout the Bluegrass who make all of the funding decisions for program grants. It is really a community effort.
The 245 programs receiving grants from United Way of the Bluegrass for 2007—2008 represent 84 Central Kentucky agencies. To learn more about these programs and to see the complete funding list, visit www.uwbg.org. On the Web site, you can also learn more about other United Way programs and initiatives, such as United Way 2-1-1, Success By 6, Imagination Library, Get On Board, Gifts In Kind and Volunteer Center at United Way.
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