A Letter to the Community from your United Way CEO:

Dear Butler County Community,

The Butler County United Way this week took the first step into a successful future. United Way was right-sized to meet budget limitations - never easy - always necessary.

Over the past few years I have observed that companies both large and small are asking for a key community philanthropy partner and United Way has not been positioned to fill their requests. Over the next six months United Way will re-design itself into an organization that has relevance, a focused purpose and bold products that will position the organization successfully into the future to meet the needs of our community partners.

What does success mean for United Way? It means that youth are growing into successful adults and residents are self reliant. This cannot happen without key community partnerships. United Way knows the community demographics, the community needs and is very aware of Butler County's philanthropic potential. The next step is to bring it all together into a package that people and companies will buy.

Butler County residents have been overwhelmingly generous this past campaign. Yes, the campaign overall was significantly less than in years past. In fact we are coming in at this point in time around $2,165,000 which is where we were in 2002. However we saw many companies raise more than they have in the past and most remained about constant. The one element that we heard led to the successes, as shared with me by our Loaned Executive Dan Fitzgerald, was that a motivated and educated CEO who understood the value of United Way and could pass his/her passion to their employees made all the difference. Dan said that he talked with several Employee Campaign Coordinators and asked, "What was difference?" Each time he heard, "The CEO made the campaign a priority -there was no pressure - we just had the opportunity to learn about the community, the needs and how we could make a difference through United Way. We were motivated to give and our numbers went up." The numbers went up 26%; 75% and sometimes more than 100% from the previous year!

This energy and result must be duplicated. The needs are too urgent for us to keep using our same tools. Our action steps this week, although very difficult because we say good-bye to two key professionals who put their heart into United Way's work every day, puts us on financial track to accomplish this important task.

The Butler County United Way has been serving local communities for 88 years - it is my plan to be serving local Butler County needs long into the future.

In the near future we will be calling for a strategic planning session inviting all who are interested to help design our future. Please consider the invitation and be part of the team that sustains United Way's future!

Sincerely,

Maureen Noe
President/CEO