CHARITY FUNDING

Linda Grant’s detailed “Acts of Charity” (Sept. 13) omits a vital aspect of nonprofit organizations that neither the supporters nor critics of United Way evidently care to discuss.

The $3 billion United Way raised last year did not wholly finance 46,000 “local and national service agencies.” We don’t know to what extent local, state and federal tax money paid for those operations because no one has exact figures, but we do know that they wouldn’t exist if they depended solely on gifts.

In the last decade of the 20th Century, both public and private funding of essential services are necessary. Not unreasonably, however, givers ask: “If my taxes pay for health and human-service organizations, why am I asked for contributions?”

MILTON GOLDIN, PRESIDENT

THE MILTON GOLDIN CO.

FUND-RAISING CONSULTANTS

Tarrytown, N.Y.