New Goals for United Way: $89 Million in ‘89, Passage of Props. 84, 99

The Los Angeles Area United Way, announcing an ambitious $89-million fund-raising goal for the coming year, took the unusual step Thursday of endorsing two ballot measures and said it would seek to coordinate the battles against AIDS and illiteracy in the county.

The board of directors said the charity group was backing two statewide measures on the Nov. 8 ballot: Proposition 84, a $300-million bond issue to finance low-income housing, and Proposition 99, which would increase the tax on tobacco products to 35 cents to raise more money for health and environmental purposes.

In the past, the organization has rarely come out in support of such ballot measures, but several California chapters have recently begun doing so.

Explaining the group’s stance, Stephen D. Gavin, who heads United Way’s Government Affairs Committee, said: “We’ve decided that it is important to be a participant in the public discussions that affect the agencies that we help serve, where there is a direct connection between the objectives of United Way and the issues at hand. We are going to be more participative in the political arena as it relates to issues, not candidates.”

AIDS Crisis

At the same time, the group is organizing a meeting of government and private-sector health and social service agencies to develop a strategy to tackle the AIDS crisis. Los Angeles County has the nation’s second highest number of acquired immune deficiency syndrome cases, and is No. 1 in the rate of increase in new cases.

“We are going to do more of this sort of thing. We believe that our strength is as a catalyst for bringing people and organizations together to solve social problems,” President Leo Cornelius said in an interview before the fund-raising campaign was announced to members at the Hollywood Palladium.

United Way, noting that 15% of those in the work force cannot read, has also made eradication of illiteracy a priority. A United Way task force will investigate gaps in services related to illiteracy and make new allocations to agencies providing reading programs.

While United Way officials say they are confident they can meet the fund-raising goal using a variety of new campaign programs, Cornelius acknowledged that the figure is still a “stretch goal.”

Economic Outlook

“The potential is certainly there,” Cornelius said, noting that the figure was reached after calculating such factors as the economic outlook, last year’s donor support and the health and social needs of the community.

Last year, the charity raised $83.5 million for its 350-member agencies and 15 health groups--the second largest amount ever raised and the second highest amount raised by any United Way nationally. The amount was $1.5 million short of its goal but above the previous year’s total of $80.2 million.

Nationally, the rate of growth of giving has decreased in the last several years, according to Nathan Weber, editor of Giving USA, which tracks fund-raising. The United Way increase came at a time when all charities nationally raised more than $93 billion. While that figure was a 6.4% annual increase, it was much lower than the 9.4% increase the year before.

Cornelius estimates that going into the campaign, the amount of money available from regular corporate and employee contributions is $82 million, meaning that they will have to raise $7 million from new sources, besides retaining those who gave in the past.

Donor Base

Traditionally, United Way has looked to the workplace for most of its contributions, with the largest local companies and their employees providing most of the donations. However, in recent years, economic conditions--company mergers, consolidations, labor problems--have eroded that donor base.

Last year, United Way raised $1 million from new funding sources, including smaller companies and professional groups. That thrust will continue this year, with volunteer fund raisers planning to contact professional groups, hospitals and universities and the ethnic business community.

The charity last year started a chapter of the Alexis de Tocqueville Society, a nationwide United Way group made up of individual donors who give more than $10,000 annually. Last year, there were 170 such donors here, and officials hope to increase that to 500 this year.

Cornelius noted that last year, United Way put special emphasis on helping the region’s hungry. As a result of that meeting of government and charitable groups, a more coordinated way of providing donated food resulted.

Dispatch Program

The effort, called the Food Partnership, operates a trucking dispatch program to facilitate movement of food from donors to recipients. In the past, much food was wasted because there was inadequate transportation to get it to recipients before it spoiled.

United Way has also organized a committee of 30 community volunteers that will analyze the charity’s mission and develop ways to reach out to an ethnically changing and growing community.