United Way on a cloud for more than fundraising

The United Way of Horry County, which passed its current fundraising goal of $1,325,000 on Tuesday, moves into determining how next year’s funds will be allocated with a streamlined process. Since the first of the year, e-CImpact has been live for community partners to do their required quarterly reporting.

From a nonprofit’s point of view, e-CImpact means the director or financial officer can work on her financial reports anytime, anywhere, says Rosanne Dates, community impact coordinator. Now in the grant funding cycle, applications by community partners and evaluations by community investment (allocations) volunteers are done on e-CImpact. No more paper reports to generate, refine and copy for the face-to-face interviews.

Let’s backtrack to the current fundraising campaign, which started in September 2016 with a goal of $1,325,000, an increase of $25,000 over the successful prior drive. Genie Sherard, United Way president, says staff members made phone calls as the goal was near. Monday’s weekly newsletter reported fundraising at 99 percent of goal.

After new donations from a variety of contributors, at 9 a.m. Tuesday, the campaign was just $1,000 short. Before noon, Sherard phoned campaign chairman John Rowe, who surely did not mind the interruption, to tell him that contributions on Monday and Tuesday put the campaign at $1,333,671 – 100.7 percent of the goal. Rowe’s immediate response was to suggest a stretch goal of $1,350,000. The campaign continues through April, as has been the case since 2015.

Rowe also credited the many volunteers who work hard on fundraising: “There are so many great ambassadors who are waving the United Way flag to help impact others in our community.”

The campaign has seven divisions. As of Monday, both the North Strand Division and Industry Division had raised 114 percent of their goals. They are led by Marc Jordan and Gregg Turbeville.

Across the nation, United Way organizations have moved away from helping fund nonprofit organizations to funding programs for health, education and financial stability.

“We fund human services that are making an impact, making lives better,” Dates says.

Both Horry County and Black River United Way, which serves Georgetown and Williamsburg counties, have a special focus on early childhood education. The Horry board approved its early childhood initiative at its retreat last year.

Dates has two dozen or more applications from several partners and anticipates perhaps 45 by the application deadline at 5 p.m. April 1. She expects to have as many as 40 “community investment volunteers” to evaluate and then meet with all applicants.

The community impact coordinator is a new position for the United Way of Horry County. Dates started with United Way in September 2015, having worked for the Georgetown County Chamber of Commerce and the Belle W. Baruch Foundation which operate the Hobcaw Barony.

Contact information

▪ United Way of Horry County

Phone | 843-347-5195

Online | www.unitedwayhorry.org

For grant applications, click on “For Agencies” then “Grants”

▪ Black River United Way

Phone | 843-546-6317

Online | www.Blackriveruw.org information

This story was originally published March 15, 2017 at 6:43 AM with the headline "United Way on a cloud for more than fundraising."