United Way meets 2008 fundraising goal
Despite rising unemployment and an ailing economy, the United Way of Dane County projects it will meet its 2008 campaign goal of $16.65 million, organizers announced Thursday.
"We made it about everybody," campaign vice chairman Mike Victorson, president and CEO of M3 Insurance Solutions, said of the campaign strategy to beat the economy. "It became Dane County's campaign. Organizers focused on attracting new donors through the companies with which it works on workplace campaigns, rather then relying on big donors. "We saw record participation," he said. "That's what it takes."
There were, in fact, 6,000 new donors to the campaign, said Leslie Ann Howard, Dane County United Way president, in explaining to a crowd of 800 enthusiastic supporters at Monona Terrace Convention Center how the community responded to growing need.
United Way expects to raise about 4 percent more than it did last year to support an Agenda for Change that focuses on: minority student achievement; early childhood education; access to health care; homelessness; independence for the elderly and disabled; domestic violence and the strength of local non-profit service providers.
Pat Schneider
Loaned executives, whose time toward fundraising is donated by local businesses, reveal the projected total of the 2008 United Way of Dane County campaign -- $16,652,011 -- Thursday at a celebratory luncheon at Monona Terrace.
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