Giving Away Money Is Never Easy!

Every year when we start a new Youth Leadership Group, I tell them that at the end of the program they will be giving money away through an allocation process, and that giving away money is not easy! On first thought it would seem that giving money away would be very easy, but on further examination you quickly realize the responsibility that goes along with giving away money - particularly when it's not yours!

Consider that one of the greatest philanthropist's of all time, Andrew Carnegie, set a goal of giving away all his money before he died - and he was not able to succeed. Why? It's really quite simple. When you give money away, you want to make sure that you are doing it responsibly and using the money wisely. Carnegie and the staff that he hired to help him were very careful in examining all the requests that came to him before making actual funding decisions. Most of their decisions turned out to be correct, and we even see one example right here in our Valley with the Derby Neck Library which is one of the many libraries receiving funding from Carnegie.

That same attention to detail comes into play here at Valley United Way with our annual funding process just completed. The full list of allocations made can be found on our website, but I want to take a minute to thank our volunteers who took on the task of analyzing the requests for funding that we received this year. The process actually began in April when agencies submitted their requests. For the second year in a row, we have utilized a paperless process. Agencies completed the entire application on line, and then our volunteers came together to get their assignments. We had twenty-eight volunteers under the able leadership of Peter Galla this year. They were split into panels for health, social services and youth with each volunteer reviewing two agencies along with a partner.

All of the "paperwork" was on-line for the volunteers, but the real key for each was a face to face meeting with the agencies. This gives the volunteers an opportunity to ask questions about programs and financial information and to get a real feel for the services delivered by the agencies. It's also "show time" for the agencies as they can highlight the value of their services and give the volunteers a tour of their agencies. One year, the Girl Scouts brought along some of the Scouts to make their case. It was very effective as the girls ended up in the United Way video that year!

Once the evaluations are completed, the volunteers come together to compare notes and make funding decisions. That's when reality sets in, and it becomes obvious that there is not enough money available to fund everything being recommended. The volunteers then have to really sharpen their pencils and make the numbers work. This is the hardest part of the job as the volunteers recognize that every cut means fewer services will be available and that they need to balance all of the areas of need. It's not an easy task, but it is one that they do with fairness and compassion.

Their recommendations are then presented to the Board of Directors who make the final decisions. When times are tough and funding is tight, it takes the wisdom of Solomon to make the difficult choices that need to be made, but I want to thank all of our volunteers and the Board of Directors for their work this year.

Now that they are done, maybe we can send them to Hartford to help the governor and our legislators!!