January 22, 2004

Contributors set United Way record

The 2003 United Way campaign received contributions and pledges totaling $272,247, thanks to the generosity of 876 staff and faculty members, 26 emeritus faculty, 14 retirees, 39 Northwestern Medical Faculty Foundation (NMFF) staff members, and one contributed services faculty member.

The figure exceeds the University’s goal of $260,000 and sets a new Northwestern campaign record.

Northwestern employees contributed $254,774. NMFF staff contributed $4,797. Northwestern retirees, emeritus and contributed services faculty contributed $8,016. Silent auction proceeds added $4,660.

Of the total amount, United Way beneficiary agencies will receive $226,943 and other charitable organizations will receive $45,304 in the second year of an open campaign. Next year’s campaign will again allow donors to “write in” names of any Internal Revenue Service-recognized non-profit organizations.

Overall the 2003 campaign resulted in a 7 percent increase in total contributions and pledges. Separately, Northwest-ern donors increased their contributions by 3.9 percent.

The winners of the participation rate contest were Alumni Relations with a 96 percent rate, University Services with a 69 percent rate, and Student Accounts and Student Loans with a 61 percent rate. Honorable mention goes to University Relations for its 57 percent participation rate.

In addition to the group participation contest, the 2003 campaign had an early bird raffle and a year-end raffle with greatly expanded prize lists over the previous year to motivate employees to give generously and early. There were 112 early bird raffle winners and 206 winners of the United Way Year-End Raffle.

The grand prize winners of each raffle were Julie Gordon, executive director of Econometric Society of the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, who won a Dell personal computer donated by Dell, and Nancy Sims, assistant director of the Kellogg Career Management Center, who won an IBM personal computer donated by Computer Discount Warehouse (CDW).

“Besides the group contest and the raffles which generated interest in the campaign, we increased the number of campaign areas and managers from 42 to 59 this year,” said Brian Peters, director of University Services.

“History has shown that if a campaign manager has a manageable number of employees to encourage, the participation rate is much higher. A good example of this is when the Controller’s Office divided into three campaign areas. Its overall participation rate increased 119 percent over last year, fueled largely by Student Accounts and Student Loans, third-place winners of the participation rate contest.”

The number of areas will be increased again next year.

Peters said, “Kudos also go to the following areas that achieved significant increases over last year: University Police (277 percent increase); Center for Public Safety (170 percent increase); and Development (72 percent increase).”

The campaign managers put in a great deal of effort to help raise funds for the 2003 United Way campaign, Peters said. “Our thanks go to them and to all the departments for their increased participation.”

The 2004 campaign has a goal of $285,000 and 900 donors. Employees who would like to contribute time to the 2004 campaign should contact Brian Peters at 1-8420 or b-peters2@northwestern.edu or Lucile Krasnow at 7-5762 or l-krasnow@northwestern.edu, the co-chairs for Northwestern’s United Way campaign.