By Mark Wilson, Evansville Courier & Press
Giving to United Way of Southwestern Indiana continued to decline in 2008, again leaving the agency with less money to distribute to the partner agencies it helps to fund.
This year the United Way's 33 partner agencies received just more than $3 million compared with the $4.3 million given out last year, said Carol Braden-Clarke, executive director.
The $4.5 million United Way's 2008 campaign raised for use this year was a decrease of 9 percent from 2007. The 2007 campaign also saw a 9 percent decrease in giving. That amounts to a $500,000 decrease in each of the last two years.
Braden-Clarke attributed the decline to decreases in corporate giving and individual employee donations because of the economy.
However, Braden-Clarke said United Way's board took great pains to ensure the money was being invested wisely in the community.
"We feel we invested the money in quality programming," she said.
The funding goes to support specific programs of various agencies, carefully chosen to meet community needs.
Some of the many programs receiving United Way funding include Evansville ARC's Child Life Center, Goodwill Industries' Family Center Transitional Housing, Catholic Charities' Neighbor to Neighbor program, the American Red Cross of Warrick County for public health education and the Spencer County Council on Aging's transportation program.
"All these funds that we collect fund local programs that fall into three priority areas," said Sister Darlene Boyd, a United Way board member.
Those areas are education, income and health and are interconnected, agency officials said.
While they were areas of emphasis for United Way before, Braden-Clarke said a community-needs study done last year by United Way reinforced their importance.
"Good education leads to good jobs. Good jobs lead to good incomes and that leads to better access to health care," Braden-Clarke said.
More than 60 volunteers from a cross-section of the community reviewed funding requests for programs that addressed education, income or health, looking at the outcomes of each program, the cost to serve individuals and the financial stability of the agencies.
United Way's board of directors then approved their recommendations.
Cuts anticipated
Many of the agencies receiving funding anticipated the reductions, already having experienced cuts last year.
"United Way is a large source for us but we also receive funding from business and individual memberships and community partners such as St. Mary's and Deaconess," said Arin Norris, director of Mental Health America of Vanderburgh County.
"We had anticipated it and planned a membership drive and some special events for this year (to raise money)."
It will hit hardest in the organization's supplemental medication program, assisting low-income, uninsured adults to purchase an emergency 30-day supply of psychiatric medication when necessary, she said.
Money for the program often goes fast.
Overall, it will be about a $6,000 decrease in funding from last year, Norris said.
This year's United Way funding is only a slight decrease from last year for ECHO Community Health Care, said Sandee Strader-McMillen, its acting executive director.
"We are in a perpetual cycle of writing grants for funding," Strader-McMillen said.