Philanthropy Today
Philanthropy Today
Konza United Way on the GMCF Community Hour Show Episode - 212
Tara Clausen, CEO of Kansa United Way, discusses their upcoming Community Investment Day where volunteers help decide how donor funds are allocated to programs supporting ALICE families (Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed).
• Community Investment Day on July 23rd is a full-day event where volunteers review grant applications and hear from nonprofit partners
• Dollars raised through United Way campaigns are invested directly back into community programs in four key areas: healthy communities, youth opportunities, community resilience, and financial security
• Federal funding cuts are putting additional pressure on local nonprofits, making United Way support even more critical
• The United Way recently surpassed its campaign goal but still aims to engage more workplaces and increase funding
• Volunteers for Community Investment Day can register through the Kansa United Way website (KansaUnitedWay.org) or by calling their office
Visit KansaUnitedWay.org to register for Community Investment Day on July 23rd or to learn more about supporting their campaign efforts.
Philanthropy Today is brought to you by the Greater Manhattan Community Foundation. In this episode we feature a recently broadcast segment of the GMCF Community Hour, as heard on NewsRadio KMAN. The GMCF Community Hour here on NewsRadio KMAN gives us an opportunity to speak with a number of nonprofits and the work that they are doing so that we can share with the community and take this time on KMAN on a weekly basis to talk about the great things that they are doing, so that we can share with the community and take this time on K-Man on a weekly basis to talk about the great things that they're doing. One of the longtime great organizations is the Kansa United Way. We got the CEO, tara Clausen, joining us via Zoom today.
Speaker 1:Tara, good morning, good morning, happy Monday, happy Monday, happy Monday that is such a wonderful phrase that a lot of people should learn how to embrace Really, don't you think For sure something here? Former director Maxine Coffey. I want to send our thoughts and prayers out to Maxine and their family on Ray's passing the other day I saw that just made my heart ache and Maxine was longtime director of the Kansai United Way and just a dear soul and a great person in the community and just want to extend our best wishes to Maxine and the family. So that's-.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I think that's important. You know, when you lead a nonprofit, it's as much you and your family, your family comes right alongside of you, so Absolutely. I do think it's important to recognize that and we also send our condolences.
Speaker 1:And they have such a charitable heart. You know the blood drive that they established in their son's name after his death, and so the Coffees are a wonderful couple in our community and that's a hard loss to stomach, but thoughts for Maxine and Ray's passing so community investment day. We're just going to jump right into the talk here right now, and I've been a part of this in the past, but it's a vital part of your mission at Consul United Way, so tell me what it is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, community investment day is an opportunity for volunteers to join us, learn about the priority needs in the community and how that aligns with our focus to support our Alice families, those who are working hard but just need a little bit of extra help to kind of make it to the end of the month and ensure all those bills and invoices are paid to support their family. And so the volunteers who join us on Community Investment Day help us gather information and really help us invest the dollars that are raised throughout the campaign year so that we can make the most possible impact to help our families thrive.
Speaker 1:When do you have this?
Speaker 2:Yeah, the date this year is July 23rd. It's a full day, so we usually start right at the beginning of the business day and end a little bit before five, but we ask everybody to hold the calendar till five, just in case there's questions and we run a little bit long. So it's a full day, but it's an impactful day.
Speaker 1:I've yet to have anybody leave the day and say, oh my gosh, it's a learning experience and I'm so glad I was here. It's a learning experience for those that are participating. It's a real eye opener.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it certainly can be. You know, it's an opportunity to hear about the great work that the nonprofits who partner with, to hear about the great work that the nonprofits who partner with Kansa United Way are doing in the community, the needs that are there and how we're joining together to ensure that our community and the citizens within it are successful and can support their families.
Speaker 1:You know, I know it's difficult for a lot of people to commit to a full day out of their busy schedule to serve in this, but there's a lot of aspects about this. There's a tremendous sense of power that an individual can gain from learning about what the work is to the United Way and those agencies that you support through the Community Investment Day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know it is a powerful day and the reason it's one day, honestly, is feedback from the volunteers themselves they would rather dedicate one full day than have us break it apart, and we have over 20, anywhere from 15 to 20 partners who want to work alongside us to support our families, and so it's a big decision and it's not a rush through decision, and so there has to be time. I mean, we already make it probably as succinct day as possible, but we're asking individuals to make tough choices. How do we invest United Way and our donor dollars in the best way possible to make the biggest impact? And that's not a quick answer and it's not a quick decision. So it is a full day, but it's a powerful day.
Speaker 1:Give us the layout of what is all involved in the day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we start with some rolls and coffee.
Speaker 2:We want everybody to be nice and wide awake, but we talk through the kind of expectations of the day, what you can expect, what you'll see, some of the tough decisions that we'll be asking you to make throughout the day. And then, very honestly, we break the day into equal segments, to equal segments and those who apply through the grant process and align with our mission to support key areas such as healthy communities, youth opportunities, community resilience and financial security. We stay very much within those key pillar areas. But those nonprofits who have programs we support the programs themselves, not the nonprofit as a whole come alongside. They have a chance to answer any questions that maybe have seen by the volunteers through the grant process, because as a volunteer you do get to see the grant application itself, the budget that supports that initiative, so they get a chance to speak.
Speaker 2:The nonprofit gets a chance to speak about the impact of the initiative and then there's some Q&A with those volunteers because we want you to make sure you have and can make an informed decision. And then at the end of the day, we talk through what we heard, we identify the campaign dollars raised and the amount we'll be able to invest back in the community. And then there's some tough decisions to ensure where those dollars can go the greatest and the farthest, make the biggest impact with a charge to be an additional voice in the community, to engage more, to become part of the annual United Way campaign, because eventually we'd like to be able to fund and fully fund all of those initiatives. So maybe the decision's a little bit easier and it aligns with where we can make the biggest impact, but it's not fully funding those who want to walk alongside us in our efforts.
Speaker 1:Let's talk a bit about some of these specific programs and the impact that Community Investment Day has, and I suppose there's probably, you know there's some additional, dare we say, anxiety because of what's happening, you know, in the national scope of things, with grants being reduced or eliminated and that's putting extra pressure on a lot of these nonprofits. So the importance of what you're doing with distribution of some of these funds from the United Way to these various agencies, becomes even greater.
Speaker 2:You know it really does. It's a tough environment we're all in in the nonprofit community, yeah, which directly affects the families that live beside us, I guess is the best way to say that. So those dollars and putting them where they're making the greatest impact, I think is critical to look at, and I do think we need to have an open lens to see who is being affected by federal dollars that are not coming into our community, that are not coming into our community Outside of Community Investment Day. Kansai United Way also facilitates the emergency food and shelter dollars that come into our community and that is on pause. So, while that doesn't directly fund our United Way, we do facilitate that those dollars come in for mass shelter and food and that kind of thing in our community, and so we can see it from our lens, the impact of federal dollars coming in.
Speaker 2:I just think it's important for us to open our hearts, open our minds if possible, widen our checkbook if we're in a position to be able to do that, because the need is not getting smaller, but the funding opportunities from outside of our local community are narrowing and so we are going to have to think local, we are going to have to think about our neighbors and our friends and what we want our community to look like, what we want our small businesses to look like, because if our families aren't being able to successfully pay their bills at the end of the month, there's less money that's going to be spent locally in our local economy.
Speaker 2:So it's all linked and tied together and so to have a thriving community you have to have families that can support themselves, and these families are not sitting at home waiting for somebody to just plop some dollars in their lap and pay those bills. They're working hard, sometimes two and three jobs. Sometimes they can't take an increase or a new job with better benefits because the better benefits don't offset what they might lose if they are receiving SNAP and some federal benefits. So it's not always an easy decision for our families to uplift themselves, but we need to be that safety net as a community so, again, all can thrive.
Speaker 1:You know, and we're a few months away from your big fundraising campaign that typically starts in September. So I'm sure you're planning on that too?
Speaker 2:Our campaign actually starts July 1.
Speaker 2:So we're right at the cusp of ending the campaign that we're currently in. It's our 2025 campaign, super happy to share that we did surpass what we set as a financial goal. We're a long way from where we want to be, but we surpassed the goal that we had for us this year and we're looking to engage more workplaces. We want to talk to business leaders who are willing to open their business and their workplace to allow us to come in and share those needs, share the work that we're doing alongside others to meet the needs of the family, and we hope we can grow our campaign even more.
Speaker 2:Again, I mentioned earlier we'd like to get to the point that those who are focusing initiatives and driving change in those key areas that United Way champions, we'd like to fully fund them and we need the community to do that, because United Way giving and the campaign dollars that are raised through the campaign really come from the individuals in the community themselves. United Way giving is a reflection of those of us who give to the United Way campaign throughout the year. We're not putting a bunch of money in savings accounts and doing different things with it. When dollars are invested with United Way, we turn around that next year and invest it right back into the community so that we're meeting the immediate needs that are in the community itself.
Speaker 1:Well, let's put out the ask, the invitation for people to volunteer as part of Community Investment Day, which is July 23rd. What is that process? To get signed up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if you have any questions about it, if it's new to you, we encourage you to give our office a call. We're happy to talk through that with you. At that same time we can get you registered. But we do have an active registration link on the events page of our website so by simply clicking on that you can register your name, get that back saved on your calendar to hold that. We'll be having a quick orientation the week before to answer any questions so that we can just jump into the day on July 23rd. But really would love to have those in the community who are looking to learn more about our community needs, what's happening to support our local families, to reach out, and we'd love to have some new volunteers join us on that day.
Speaker 1:And the website is KansaUnitedWayorg. That's a great way to get connected. Tara Clausen, always a delight to have you on my friend, Good to see you and continued good luck and best wishes to all you do for Kansa United Way and in preparation for Community Investment Day.
Speaker 2:Hey, thanks so much for having us on today and sharing the word.
Speaker 1:We'll have Mitzi Richards going to be joining us here for the final segment. We've got some things that are happening in the community that we want to share with you, and then we'll also give you a preview of the next show, but it's two weeks away. We'll tell you why the GMCF Community Hour is next. It continues. It continues here after this break on NewsRadio KMAN.