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United Way hopes to net new donors via social media

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By Jim DeBrosse, Staff Writer 10:30 PM Tuesday, September 8, 2009

DAYTON — When one of United Way’s 500 cause members on Facebook asked her friends to donate money to the charitable organization in lieu of buying her birthday gifts, officials at the Greater Dayton agency were not only pleasantly surprised but excited about the possibilities for future fundraising.

“We haven’t even exposed the tip of the iceberg” in figuring out ways to raise money through social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace and Twitter, said United Way spokeswoman Jayne Klose. The agency launches its 2009 campaign today, Sept. 9, with a goal of raising $9.5 million to $10 million in contributions.

With NCR leaving the area, United Way of Greater Dayton is calling on individual donors to help make up the expected half-million dollar drop in contributions for 2009.

“Our goal is to attract at least 9,000 new individual contributors” donating a dollar a week, said Vince Corrado, chairman of Shook Corp. and United Way campaign chairman. The agency will launch its campaign today, Sept. 9, with noon rallies at Courthouse Square, The Greene and the Preble County Courthouse.

Other strategies include targeting emerging new businesses here, finding more support among the many contractors at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and looking for ways to appeal to younger citizens, said Vince Corrado, chairman of Shook Corp. and this year’s campaign chief.

A strategy the agency has declined is pooling resources with United Way of Greater Cincinnati. The Dayton area board decided in May to cut off merger talks with Cincinnati. The advantage of going it alone “is that people can feel real confident that their money stays local,” Klose said. The disadvantage is that “Dayton has been hit a little harder” by the economic downturn.

NCR, along with General Electric and Premier Health Partners, was one of three organizations last year to raise more than $400,000 for United Way of Greater Dayton. “They’ll be missed,” Corrado said.

Klose said individuals can now make one-time donations directly to United Way via Facebook and the agency’s own Web site (www.live unitedayton.org). Still to come, however, is a way to make pledges and weekly and monthly contributions online, she said.

The hope is to match last year’s $9.5 million and perhaps raise it to $10 million, Corrado said.

Current contributors can help by giving the same amount they did last year “and then try to involve more people in the campaign,” Corrado said.

United Way has met its fundraising goal just twice in the last five years. Donations have dropped 20 percent since peaking in 2006 at $11.8 million. Seventy-eight local service agencies benefit from the campaign. “Many people receive help from United Way and don’t even realize it,” Corrado said.

Corrado said United Way has to find a way to get its message across to younger contributors, either through the Internet or the emerging businesses where many of them work.

“We need to understand how to use the social media and the new technology,” he said. “Look at Barack Obama” and his campaign success via the Internet. “We need to be on Facebook, we need to be on Twitter.”

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