The Commercial Appeal

DRIVING THE DREAM

United Way of Mid-South shifts focus and dollars to poverty-fighting mission

- By Kevin McKenzie mckenzie@commercial­appeal.com 901-529-2348

Challenged by a 25 percent decline in contributi­ons in recent years, the United Way of the Mid-South is sharpening its focus on fighting poverty and helping families become selfsuffic­ient.

Now the United Way is beginning to leverage the millions of dollars it distribute­s to nearly 80 high-performing nonprofit agencies, guiding them to focus on the same goals and to work together to form a social services system of care.

“United Way is doing something which in the for-profit business is not unusual, but it has been fairly unusual for United Way,” said Dr. Kenneth Robinson, chief executive officer of the Memphis-based organizati­on since February 2015.

“We have a mission and we are simply aligning our work and our grants more deliberate­ly and intentiona­lly toward our mission, and particular­ly to drive a level of assumed community impact,” said Robinson, a former state health commission­er and a retired pastor.

For the first time, organizati­ons receiving a total of $13.7 million in the new fiscal year for United Way funding are finding somewhat more, or fewer dollars based on the poverty-fighting mission.

A total of $634,000 is shifting to organizati­ons that are early adopters of United Way’s new “Driving the Dream” initiative.

Agencies, in addition to their own services, are expected to provide referrals, share data and collaborat­e and partner in a variety of ways to drive “client-centered” routes out of poverty.

Trends for several years have been pushing for more collaborat­ion and measurable results in the nonprofit world. The United Way’s realignmen­t, which Rob--

inson said has been known for a year to organizati­ons receiving funding, is bringing the message home.

Alpha Omega Veterans Services, for example, received a 20 percent boost, to $222,000, from United Way for the 2016-17 budget year that began July 1.

Robinson said the additional funds are to help Alpha Omega expand its services, but with more referrals, linking with other agencies and “more intentiona­lly.”

Cordell Walker, executive director of the 30-year-old agency that operates six facilities and provides services for homeless and disabled veterans, said United Way funding increases are rare and every penny helps in Alpha’s budget of about $2.1 million.

Walker said potential uses for more funds include expanding services for female veterans or for preventing suicides among Iraq and Afghanista­n veterans.

He said United Way’s new initiative is too new to assess.

“I will say that United Way has always been on the cutting edge of community service and make sure that individual­s network so that there are no gaps between services,” Walker said.

The Chickasaw Council of the Boy Scouts of America is an example of an agency that received decreased United Way funding.

Richard Fisher, the Chickasaw Council’s top executive, declined to say how much of a decrease because his board hadn’t been informed. United Way also declined to provide figures.

United Way’s financial statements for 2014-15 show an allocation of more than $247,000 for the Boy Scouts, not including more than $84,000 earmarked by donors.

Fisher said an anti-poverty focus is not new for the Boy Scouts, although safety-net programs may fit the model more easily than the leadership developmen­t and selfrelian­ce mission of the scouts.

Helping make youths job-ready; a scouting program linked to science, technology, engineerin­g and math; and teaching Cub Scouts about financial sustainabi­lity to avoid cycles of poverty are examples of the Chickasaw Council’s initiative­s, he said. The council’s total revenue in 2014 was more than $4 million, an IRS filing shows.

“We will have to make up the difference in what we lost in other ways so we can continue expanding quality programs,” Fisher said.

For Big Brothers and Big Sisters of the Mid-South, United Way funding remained “flat” with the new focus, said Rychetta Watkins, executive director of the mentoring nonprofit organizati­on for about a month.

“We anticipate that going forward we will be able to build a stronger relationsh­ip with United Way, especially as we retool ourselves,” Watkins said. “We’re going to be much more forthright about reporting on our own impact, the outcomes of the youth that we serve.”

Robinson said a good example of the United Way’s new focus on poverty — a daily reality for 47 percent of Memphis children — is a partnershi­p with the Memphis Public Library for the LINC/211 community informatio­n resource center.

The federal Earned Income Tax Credit is considered the nation’s largest anti-poverty program, and by providing pretax appointmen­ts through 211, the United Way increases by 1,000 the number of people seen, he said.

United Way itself is “driving the dream” with a broader collaborat­ion with the Greater Memphis Chamber Chairman’s Circle, the city’s Workforce Investment Network and the Greater Memphis Alliance for a Competitiv­e Workforce, among others, Robinson said.

The reinventio­n of United Way comes at a time that the organizati­on has stopped a trend of yearover-year losses, he said.

While figures comparable to the $13.7 million allocation were not immediatel­y available from the agency for previous years, tax filings shows public support dropped 25 percent, from about $26.5 million in 2010 to $19.8 million in 2014, and the organizati­on reported shortfalls of more than $2 million in 2014-15 and $1.5 million the previous year, IRS filings show.

The 2014-15 fiscal year also marked the departures of a former United Way president, two senior vice presidents and a vice president. Their annual compensati­on ranged up to about $375,000 and totaled more than $970,000 for the four executives, IRS forms show.

The United Way, whose board members include George Cogswell, president and publisher of The Commercial Appeal, also moved its headquarte­rs from the Lenox Center outside the Interstate 240 loop to an office building in the Binghamton area, on Tillman near Jackson, donated by GP Cellulose.

Robinson said that 96 percent of United Way contributi­ons are made through workplace campaigns, where payroll deductions and in some cases, company matches, are available.

Downsizing among companies during the Great Recession, coupled with a rising preference by firms and the millennial generation for direct giving and engagement with charities, have been cited as factors.

An Alliance for Nonprofit Excellence report on the Memphis metro nonprofit sector said that experts warned that state and federal budgets, foundation endowments and the withering middle class could delay a return to pre-recession funding for a decade or more. It’s a trend experience­d by nonprofits throughout the nation.

Robinson said that while the classic United Way workplace contributi­on model is on the decline, it lacked engagement, transparen­cy and mission.

“What I am finding in my brief tenure to date is that it is very compelling to our executives and to down-line employees that when there is a purpose, a unifying purpose, guess what?” he said. “It galvanizes interest again, it is intuitivel­y logical to those donors, so there’s nothing wrong with the mechanism of workplace campaigns.

“What has been missing is the messaging and a structure to really move the needle on the things that have been impacting our communitie­s, and that’s what we’re providing and that’s what we’re intentiona­lly shifting to.”

 ?? MIKE BROWN/THE COMMERCIAL APPEAL ?? U.S. Army combat veteran Sean Clark was homeless before becoming a client of the Alpha Omega Veterans Services in Midtown, where he shares a room with four others. He expects to move out of the facility into his own place soon. The nonprofit Alpha...
MIKE BROWN/THE COMMERCIAL APPEAL U.S. Army combat veteran Sean Clark was homeless before becoming a client of the Alpha Omega Veterans Services in Midtown, where he shares a room with four others. He expects to move out of the facility into his own place soon. The nonprofit Alpha...
 ??  ?? Rev. Kenneth S. Robinson
Rev. Kenneth S. Robinson

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