The Challenges Facing Dane County’s Safety Net: A Defining Moment of Community (Part 2 of 2)
Renee Moe has been the CEO of United Way of Dane County since 2016.
by Jonathan Gramling
United Way of Dane County is one of those almost “invisible” entities that help make Madison and Dane County a great place to live, work and play.
“I had a volunteer who once said, ‘United Way is a story of glue,’” said Renee Moe, United Way’s CEO. “And when it works really well, it’s invisible.’ It’s true in terms of keeping things moving the right way.”
However, United Way purposely becomes very visible starting in August of each year as it kicks off its annual giving appeal. In many ways, United Way is a nexus of community concern where people from all walks of life join together to meet community needs. And hundreds of nonprofits are financially impacted by the campaign through designations and allocations.
This year’s campaign to raise $17.50 million started out with the Day of Caring on August 19th at Breeze Stevens Field, which was sponsored by Summit Credit union.
“We had a
a great crowd at Day of Caring at Breeze Stevens Field,” Moe said. “We had over 800 people. It was a amazing. It was one of the highest attended kick-offs and Day of Caring in many years. And it was such a beautiful day. And we had so many volunteers there to help pack the items that are most requested by our nonprofit partners. We did 9,000 of them. They contained paper products and things that agencies request as well as words of inspiration. There were notes written to the people who will receive them. That was pretty cool. 9,000 packs prepared by 800 people. That’s the power of caring, working for all.”
A barrier to giving that United Way has experienced is that people would rather give directly to an agency to avoid any kind of administrative fee. Well through the generosity of a community partner, 100 percent of donations will go directly to nonprofits and community services.
“We went to a donor and said, ‘This is a barrier,’” Moe said. “’Is there something that we can do because we’ve seen participation decline? And he said, ‘I am so inspired by how United Way does its work. I want to inspire more people, the everyday philanthropist to give that I and my wife Patti and the Dan & Patti Rashke (TASC) Family Foundation are going to underwrite all administrative costs for any individual donor who gives to the Plan for Community Well-Being unrestricted for the next 10 years.’ So 100 percent of giving goes to impact. That is also helping us see more individuals give money with and through United Way. So we can give that back out into the community to our nonprofit partners and families and individuals who need it.”
The campaign is in high gear as it asks the community to give. And the campaign is basically person-to-person, reaching one donor at a time.
“We have about 60 percent of organizations who run campaigns currently scheduled,” Moe said. “And the rest of them are in progress. We have about $5 million in so far. And so there is a lot of activity going on. Companies are doing special events. There is a lot of community education and activation going on. We want people to know enough to care, care enough to act and act in ways to make a difference. Our whole team of loaned executives is out. We have volunteers inside of businesses who are trying to communicate with other employees. And their leadership is saying, ‘Hey this is a great thing. We should do this.’
A lot of the donations that United Way receives is through workplace giving. United Way has been adaptable to the changing Dane County economy. While Dane County’s core of traditional workplace giving sites are still there, that core has shrunk in recent years.
“There has been a slow decline if you look at the number of companies that participate,” Moe said. “Public sector used to be 33 percent of the workplace. Now it’s under 25 percent. Now I think it is closer to 22-23 percent. The large anchor companies are still really robust. You have the American Families, the TruStages and MGE and Alliant are doing great. BMO Bank is very supportive. UW and Summit Credit Unions are very supportive. Kim Sponem is the chair of the campaign this year. And so that in terms of those companies that have a local workforce like Zimbrick who live and work and whose customers are in Dane County, for the most part, they really understand and it is a very easy message for them to communicate.”
United Way has reached out to the growing sectors of Dane County’s economy. But it takes time and human capital to do so.
“We’re starting to get more different industries who have been coming on board with United Way and running a campaign,” Moe observed. “Most of the time, they are having a difficult time engaging younger employees and because their employees are also demanding they want to do something good for the community. So it’s actually meeting a need that they have. And I do think that there is sort of this recognition of, ‘Oh my gosh, United Way is actually an on-ramp to civic engagement and community leadership. Your one dollar payroll deduction over the course of the year actually helps people tune into community and take on more roles and become agency board members. So there is sort of a vacuum of how we build civic leadership if we don’t do more in the workplace. I think that has also been in the conversation. It’s not easy. I would say that it is less efficient now to recruit a new business. It takes 2-3 years to establish a really robust campaign. And then you can see the fun activities and the higher participation.”
While the workplace has been the center of United Way campaigns, United Way will go where people gather to make an appeal.
“We meet people where they are,” Moe said. “If they are in the every six months, on-site, all hands on deck, everyone meet at the Edgewood Hotel, we’ll go to the Edgewood Hotel. If there is a team meeting in a brief room at Subzero, we’ll go there. If there is a Zoom meeting where everyone comes in, we’ll do the pitch there. Any way that the company is focusing on how they build community, it’s more effective for us to use their communication than for us to say, ‘We do it this way.’ We’re very nimble.”
While nothing can really take the place of one-on-one human interaction, the campaign has evolved to take advantage of digital technology and the digital workplace.
“For a lot of the bio tech and healthcare IT, for some of the smaller manufacturing, some of the service digital, especially for the companies where employees might be remote, those are harder to have conversations with,” Moe said. “We have really been activating to have more digital, online giving. So we actually have an electronic pledge form. Do you remember the three-ply paper pledge forms where you needed dot-matrix printers to get through all three sheets. And now we have Tough to Give that you can do at an employee meeting. We have an employee email that comes right to you that is already pre-loaded with your name and what you gave last year. And we’ve also started doing more onsite engagement. We’re doing volunteering at the workplace instead of going out to a volunteer agency. We’ve been nimble.”
While technically people can give to United Way all year round, it traditionally holds its campaign celebration in November around Thanksgiving. This year’s celebration is November 19th at Monona Terrace.“
Everyone is welcome, but they need to register in advance,” Moe emphasized. “There is a link on the website and you can register on Evenbrite. It’s a seated lunch. It’s really a thank you to all of the donors and volunteers who helped make the campaign so successful. We’ll do a lot of awards. We’ll help recognize people for really helping to lead in mobilizing more giving and volunteering and community activation. It should be really fun.”
Especially in these times, it is important to give back to community. And United Way stands ready to ensure that 100 percent of donations get to where they are needed most.
For more information, visit www.unitedwaydanecounty.org.
