The Shawano County United Way is likely going to make at least its minimum goal for 2025, according to its executive director, Uriah Williams.
This year, the local program set a goal of raising at least $100,000 to help local nonprofits fund their initiatives, but it also set a higher goal of $145,000 in the hope that United Way can help even more.
“We set a bunch of different campaign goals, depending on where the money was coming from,” Williams said. “Whether it’s personal donations, business donations (or) other campaigns, our goal was between $100,000 and $145,000, somewhere in there. We’re doing very well.”
Williams’ last check indicated United Way had more than $80,000 confirmed, possibly close to $90,000, but that number did not include the money coming in from CoVantage Credit Union, who was using its Giving Tuesday initiative to collect for United Way. The CoVantage Cares campaign closed Dec. 16, and Williams said he has been told that more than $20,000 will be given to the organization when everything is counted up.
Williams said the official tally on what has been raised won’t be confirmed until February, as he expects there could be some last-minute giving at the end of the year to earn tax credits. However, he is optimistic United Way will have reached its baseline goal.
“We are making really great progress in meeting the goal for the year,” Williams said.
He noted the $80,000-$90,000 collected has come about this year due to some campaigns in business workplaces that United Way hadn’t worked with before, along with strong progress in individual donations.
United Way received 20 funding requests from organizations, most of them in Shawano and Menominee counties. According to Williams, the ones that are based in other counties would only be considered if their projects are confirmed to help people locally. He noted that Family Services of Northeast Wisconsin out of Green Bay is one of the organizations requesting funds, but its community giving closet is in Shawano County.
“It’s a wide variety of requests,” Williams said.
If United Way reaches the top goal, Williams said it would be able to fund about 75% of the requests made. However, he noted that charitable giving locally has gone up, bucking the trend of most of the state, where giving statistics appear to be dropping.
Williams attributes the local giving to the Shawano United Way being one of the smaller ones in the state.
“When you support United Way, it’s like supporting the whole nonprofit community,” he said. “I don’t know what you want to take from that. For us, our baseline was so low.”
Williams added that the local United Way has been on an upward trend for the last five years. He can’t take credit for the whole increase in giving at that time, noting most of the work had been done by his predecessor, Nancy Schultz. When Schultz took over, United Way was only raising $40,000 per year, so the goals have been increasing, according to Williams.
Some of the requesters Williams noted for this year include Safe Haven, Shawano Area Matthew 25, Shawano Area Food Pantry and Resource Center, Shawano Area Food Center, FRESH Project, Big Brothers Big Sisters and the Boys and Girls Club.
“Most of our budget goes toward supporting those organizations,” Williams said.
The fundraising will also help the programs that United Way oversees directly, such as the diaper bank and Volunteer Income Tax Assistance, both volunteer run.
lpulaski@newmedia-wi.com
