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United Way distributes funds
Fort Collins Coloradoan
October 26, 2003
Columns

September is the kick-off for our annual campaign. Every year United Way launches a fund-raising campaign to individuals and businesses throughout Larimer County. It enables us to explain the benefits of supporting the community through United Way, and also helps make it easier for people to donate.

The economy continues to be tight, and at the same time the needs of our community are rising. We can no longer rely on government funds as we’ve seen these slashed or even depleted. This means United Way must step up and play a larger role in providing a safety net for people who are forced to look for one. If we don’t do this, the problems we’re already seeing are likely to get bigger. With this year’s campaign, we hope to prevent this from happening.

With the assistance of many volunteers, United Way will be approaching local businesses over the next several months to do employee campaigns. United Way is able to educate large numbers of residents about local issues through these employees campaigns in the workplace. The benefit to the community is clear; in small amount of time, many residents can be educated about the local issues and donate. In addition, there are substantial benefits to companies as well.

Firstly, no company is able to listen to every agency’s request for funding, however much it might want to. There are simply too many out there, United Way offers a one-stop shop.

Secondly, United Way is dedicated to identifying the community’s greatest needs, prioritizing these, and addressing and solving them. So we invest your dollars towards the areas they can do the most good.

The United Way campaign is simple to participate in. Companies are just asked to do is bring staff together to hear a short 15-minute presentation and hand out pledge cards. We make it as easy as possible to give. For example, donating a few dollars a week through pay roll deduction can be easier than writing out a lump sum. If you prefer, we can organize bank withdrawals, credit card payments and so on. One of the main goals of the campaign is to give as many people as possible an easy way to donate.

Every little helps. You don’t have to give hundreds of dollars to truly make a difference (although of course we’d never turn it down!). But if more people give a small amount, this will make a tremendous difference. There are approximately 167,000 working adults in Larimer County. Imagine if each person gave only one dollar per week, we’d have over 8.6 million dollars to help support our community.

We are proud of our community, and we cannot afford to slow down our efforts to keep it strong. We must support those who are vulnerable and those who need help getting back on their feet.

As ever, United Way appreciates your contributions to this community. If you’d like more information on joining in the campaign, please call us at (970) 407-7000.

- By Meg Brown a.k.a.: Sophie Waghorn

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