United Way to Battle AIDS and Illiteracy : Charity: Strategy marks first time agency has targeted specific issues. Money will be in addition to regular fund-raising.

The Los Angeles area United Way agency pledged for the first time Monday to raise money for agencies battling AIDS and adult illiteracy, whether or not those agencies are members of United Way.

The organization’s directors voted 60-0 to raise $1 million for AIDS service organizations and $200,000 for illiteracy programs during the next several months, over and above the money it will seek during its annual fund-raising campaign. The move is part of a new United Way strategy to address major community issues beyond the specific concerns of member agencies, said Leo Cornelius, the organization’s president.

“It’s like adding a floor to a building,” said Cornelius. “We need 11 floors for some very important things. This is the 12th floor.”

Barbara Clark, chair of the illiteracy task force, said, “United Way has never in its history singled out an issue to tackle. It is saying to a community that declared it non-responsive in the past, ‘We hear you.’ ”

The United Way’s member agencies have tackled both issues in the past through their own programs, but not as a concerted effort. AIDS education programs received about $250,000 from the organization last year.

AIDS and illiteracy are the first issues directly tackled by the United Way, Cornelius said. United Way officials said other major issues will be similarly funded, but none has been identified.

Volunteers on task forces that advised United Way on AIDS and illiteracy acknowledged after the vote that the amounts pledged were small, given the size of both problems, but said that the action itself was important.

The $200,000 “opens the doors for the United Way to address major concerns in the community,” said Clark, who is also principal administrative librarian for the Los Angeles Public Library. An estimated 1 million adults in the Los Angeles area are functionally illiterate, she added.

Rand Schrader, a Los Angeles Municipal Court judge who heads United Way’s AIDS task force, said the $1-million pledge is “1 million more than we had before.”

Most agencies on the front lines of the AIDS battle, he said, are too new to be members of United Way, which stopped accepting new agencies four years ago. The money, he said, will augment other grants those agencies receive. Agencies that will receive United Way grants will be determined through a competitive application process.

Charles Thornton, chairman of United Way’s community issues council, said the organization will raise money several ways. Some regular donors in the annual fund-raising campaign will be asked to “do something extra and designate an issue that they would like to give to,” he said. The United Way will also create matching grant programs and develop targeted appeals, he said.

While the United Way has not announced a goal for its 1990-91 fund-raising campaign, last year it raised $95 million.