LIVE UNITED Y’All!

Hi!  Let me be upfront with you. I am pretty easily amused. I also am a curious person. Curious about people and what makes them tick…interested in what inspires people as individuals and groups to care - about our community, a particular cause, the greater good - and what is important to them personally when they give, advocate and volunteer. I also enjoy keeping an eye on what others are doing that’s a little …or a lot…unusual but reaching masses and raising funds for a worthy cause.

So with a preface stated, here are a few oddly funny things I recently came across that caused me to pause and say to myself WOW (remember we like that word at Metro United Way ) and hmmm.

Gorillas ….Ask people to raise $350 and dress like a gorilla to run 4 miles…nearly 1,000 people dressed up like a gorilla and ran… the 7^th annual Great Gorilla Run raised over $400,000. WOW!

Santas….Same premise but another visually entertaining sight while helping a worthy cause. Some 7,000 donned a red suit and white beard, laced up their running shoes and raised money for charity in New York.  There was even a Santa Speedo Run charity event that draws red hat revelers by the thousands and made for …um…funny photos as well!   Hmmmm.

And then there is Romeo the blogging cat. Yep, Romeo the Cat raised over $3500 via his blogging and Twitter activities. Really?

A recent New York Times submission to David Pogue’s blog reads in part…

Dear David:” My cat is on Twitter and he’s raised almost $3,500 in a little over THREE WEEKS for animal rescues… I launched a Twitter account for my cat…to make one of my colleagues laugh, but something interesting happened: Romeo started getting followers. There are a lot of humans, A LOT of other Twittering cats, some dogs and even hamsters, horses, turtles and birds.”  Caroline Golon

Metro United Way provides a highly efficient, easy path to increase the force of your charitable giving in our community. We leverage your giving to reach some 150 program at 90 organizations that will touch the lives of 2 of every 3 people in their lifetime.  We recently announced the 2008 annual campaign saw some 80,000 donors in our community collectively give/pledge $28.5 million to advance the common good.  It is here with us at Metro United Way where you can create lasting change, get help and give help, and make a significant lasting impact for children, adults and our community. 

If you also want to dress up in something unusual, run in your skivvies, or dance the night away like Cinderella then let us know. We want to hear from you. To our legion of 80,000 donors who have given from their hearts during these changing times to help their neighbors, co-workers, and people you may never meet,  THANK YOU for partnering with Metro United Way to change things for the better for all of us.

 Kelly Hutchinson, Donor Relationship Manager

Events, General, Giving blogging, fundraising, Giving, Metro United Way

The past twelve months I have adventured places I never thought I’d go.  I ran the mini marathon in April, in August I went back to college after a 25 year hiatus and now I’m writing my first blog entry! Who ‘da thunk?

Hi, I’m Jan. Through my role at Metro United Way I work closely with our traditional work.  I help facilitate the yearly review of our funded agencies.  This process in a nutshell: the agencies submit Investment Proposals (funding requests), volunteers review the data, visit the agencies and make funding recommendations.  (Lots more goes on of course…)

Today I want to share with you some of the data obtained in this process.  When I read it the first time, I thought, this so interesting– who else would benefit from this information?  Harrison County Community Services (HCCS) manages many programs but is funded by Metro United Way to support their Emergency Assistance program.  Director Shirley Raymond presented information to help dispel some of the myths in social services.  I recognize that this data is not research in the pure form and that some of it creates more questions than it answers.

Myth 1:  People are poor because they won’t work. Poor people “use” the system.

Data Fact: 2/3 of people in poverty receiving services are working an average of 1.7 jobs.

Myth 2: People experiencing poverty are uneducated and refuse to help themselves.

Data Fact: Of individuals who have received direct services from HCCS:

• 16% have qualifying disabilities.
• 22% were elderly
• 34% were children
• 54% of the adults in the households had high school diplomas, GED, some college or graduated college
• 8.2 % of adults had middle school education or less
• 17.8% of adults were in school, or continuing education

Myth 3: Folks are using/living on the system. [These beliefs are challenged by the data related to frequency of services over time.]

Data Fact: Of the 5,628 households in our system over 10 years;

• 34% received a service in only one month (the largest number in any category);
• followed by those who received a service in two or three months (26%)
• 5 households received services in 74 through 79 months (of the 120 months possible)

Shirley supplied additional data, but I don’t want to break the blog rules by writing too much my first time out!

With the current economy, the demand for these services is already seeing an increase.  Harrison County Community Services is seeing clients that have never been through their doors. They are seeing people adjusting their lives to “survival mode” where meeting basic needs is absorbing all of their resources.  Do you need help? Call 2-1-1, our free, confidential health and human service information line. Assistance is available 24/7 in over 100 languages. Are you in a position to give, advocate, and/or volunteer? Visit metrounitedway.org to find out how.

General blogging, Community, human service data, human service myths

Top Tip: Let your readers know what to expect.

Same tip, broken into three simple parts:

1. Introduce yourself. Who’s writing?
2. Explain what you’re blogging about and why.
3. Tell readers how they can be involved.

For example…

LIVE UNITED Y’All! What does it mean to LIVE UNITED? We hope to share many answers to this question through our posts related to Metro United Way’s work to improve lives by mobilizing the caring power of our community. This group blog, written primarily by Metro United Way staff but also by community volunteers and advocates, is not only ours, its yours. We want YOU, that’s right, YOU, to read and, more importantly, to be involved by commenting and letting us know your thoughts.

We’ve written a nice About page (well, we think it’s nice) that explains more about LIVE UNITED Y’All, like our comment policies, why we started this blog and what to do if you have found your way here and need help.

Be sure you’ve subscribed either via an RSS reader (orange button, upper right), or email (also upper right) so that you can get the insider’s scoop immediately from us. We’ll be posting 3 - 5 times per week on business days.

So there are our details. Would you add anything to the ‘reader expectations’ list tips for letting readers know what to expect in a first post?

With that, I hereby officially kick off our new blog, along with the new year. [Insert favorite cliche. I like: It's a fresh start for us all.] We, as a community, have a lot ahead of us, but that includes opportunity- opportunity to communicate, collaborate and create.

Let’s make it a year to live united, ya’ll.

Flickr photo: robinhamman

General blogging, first post, how to