50 years of giving it away

In the spring of 1993, the Area Wide United Way was evicted from its office in the Boatmen's Bank facility at 100 Broadway in Cape Girardeau to make room for additional storage. It was the fund-raising organization's fourth location in the building in seven years, its 30th location citywide in 38 years of existence.

Given that nomadic history, then-executive director Dorothy Klein was not surprised. In fact, she now says, "it was the best thing that ever happened to us."

It's easier for Klein to say that now as she sips coffee in the meeting room at 1858 Broadway 11 years later. As one of only three executive directors in the organization's history, Klein can speak to the United Way's many struggles over the past decades. But in this, the year of the Area Wide United Way's 50th anniversary, Klein would rather reflect on its successes.

She has seen the United Way grow from a fledgling United Fund that raised $43,630 in 1954 and helped only a handful of local organizations to an organization that raised over $1 million last year.

In the months following the 1993 eviction, she and the board of directors decided it was time to end the faith-sapping year-to-year search for rent-free office space and borrowed furniture. It was time to find a permanent, publicly visible home. Klein also knows that by the end of August, when time came to kick off the 1993 United Way campaign, she was ready to do so from her new office just down the hall. It is the same office now occupied by Nancy Jernigan, who became the executive director when Klein retired in 1995.

"When you have a permanent office, people know you are there to stay," she says. "Besides that, I was tired of moving."The United Fund

The organization's transient beginnings left behind little more than numbers to tell the story of its first decades in existence. When current Area Wide United Way administrative support manager Gail Shy set out to compile information about the history of the group for the upcoming anniversary, she found early records to be a rare commodity.

"Since they shut down the office every year, they had no storage," Shy said. "They just got rid of everything."

J. Hugh Logan was the organization's first director. Klein said that when she came to the organization as secretary in 1977, she couldn't even find minutes of the early meetings. What little Shy and Klein have found comes in the way of newspaper clippings.

From clippings, we know that on June 22, 1954, four committees representing the Cape Girardeau Chamber of Commerce, the Retail Merchants Association, the Jaycees and the Council of Women's Clubs authorized a survey of major health, welfare and character-building agencies serving Cape Girardeau. That survey gathered information on the purposes, activities and funds required of 11 organizations in the city. From that survey, it was decided to establish a United Fund campaign in Cape Girardeau.

The first campaign started with a goal of $49,500. Manned by over 500 volunteers, the drive fell short of its goal, pulling in $43,630. It wasn't until 1957 that a goal was surpassed.

"When goals weren't met, it was often because the goals were too aggressive," said Harry Rediger, three-time campaign chair and member of the board of directors from 1979 to 1999.

In 1966, the consulting firm Ketchum Inc. was brought in from Pittsburgh, Pa., to help run the campaign.

By 1969, agencies involved with the United Fund were complaining that the organization wasn't meeting all of their needs. As a result, several of the agencies were forced to conduct their own fund drives to meet their budgets.

Rediger says, however, that even when goals weren't met, the totals from year-to-year still usually rose. By the time he entered the picture in 1979, the United Way of Cape Girardeau -- the name change from United Fund occurred in 1970 -- was pulling in over $100,000 a year. When he left 20 years later, the Area Wide United Way -- a new name changed with the merger of the Jackson Community Chest -- was raising over $800,000 annually.

The first United Fund campaigns were conducted one-on-one, door-to-door. That philosophy changed in the late 1960s with the innovation of employee payroll deductions. The idea was to solicit donations from workers directly out of their paychecks.

But that idea was not an instant hit with the local business community.

A lot of employers were afraid of asking their employees to donate part of their regular paychecks because they didn't want it to appear like coercion, Rediger said.

To combat that impression, the United Way of Cape Girardeau infused the testimonies of local volunteers and previous recipients of United Way help into the kick-off programs for employee campaigns. One by one, businesses got on board. Today, 75 percent of the organization's annual revenues comes from employee payroll deductions and corporate donations.

Today's problems

Jernigan said that the problems the United Way takes on today are much more complicated than those faced by her predecessors.

"It's never just someone who can't make a house payment," Jernigan said. "Today it's someone who can't make a house payment because of abuse or drug addiction."

The Area Wide United Way is now looking outside its 32 agencies to address some of these needs head on. It has formed community assessment groups to identify larger issues that face the community, such as transportation and accessible health care, and is diverting some funds to offer one-time grants to organizations whose goals are to engage these problems.

To help the United Way expand its reach, Jerrnigan said it will be going back to the face-to-face approach in soliciting major gifts and planned gifts such as provisions in the wills of donors that will provide further donations from their estate after they have died. This will help move toward the goal of an endowment, the interest from which can pay the overhead of United Way operations.

In 2003, the Area Wide United Way reached the high point of its 50-year existence when its annual campaign brought in over $1 million. That accomplishment appears to warrant Jernigan's lofty aspirations for the evolving role of her organization. However, she fully understands that all she hopes to accomplish hinges on the continued generosity of others.

"If there's one thing I've learned in the past few years, it's that people can always give more," Jernigan said. "They just need to find that the true meaning of happiness is to give it away."

trehagen@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 137