Any gift to the community is a great gift. By earmarking your gift to the general Community Fund, you will have the greatest impact on Allen County by allowing our volunteers to invest it where it's most needed.
Our experience shows us that the best way to help the greatest number of people is to focus on the root causes of our community's most serious problems. We bring people together from across Allen County - people from government, business, faith groups, nonprofits, and neighborhoods - to tackle the issues that matter most.
We then work with our agency partners and other organizations to create a collective solution that no one agency could deliver alone. When you contribute to the general Community Fund, you help more than one person or one organization. United Way is the collective power of people working together toward long-term solutions, not short-term fixes.
United Way of Allen County will direct designated gifts only to our initiatives, agency partners, or to United Ways in other communities. When you designate a gift, those dollars are forwarded to the agency in addition to any other funding that each agency receives. Unlike a gift to the Community Fund, which is subject to monitoring of results for individuals and families, these designated gifts can be used at the agency's discretion. While all of our agency partners meet the highest standards set forth by United Way, we have no control over the outcomes generated by these designated donations.
Out of respect for the donor's intent, UWAC retains only 8% of the actual amount collected on designated pledges to our local Partner Agencies in order to recover a portion of our fundraising costs. UWAC retains 6% of designated gifts to United Ways/Funds that are part of the Northeast Indiana Consortium and 12.5% on all other designated gifts. No other fees or percentages are charged against these gifts. It is assumed that the agencies will utilize part of these funds for administrative costs and the donor would not intend for both UWAC and the Agency Partner to take administrative costs from these designated gifts.