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Media Contact: Kelley Nave, APR, at 423-752-0322, 304-3579 or kelleynave@uwchatt.org
Release: Immediately Upon Receipt
UNITED WAY ASKS IF DONORS ARE DIAMONDS?
The United Way of Greater Chattanooga is looking for diamonds, but they don’t want you to raid your jewelry box and they aren’t looking for donations from area stores. They want you – or your donation history, to be more precise.
“We want everyone on the lookout so they can help us find the diamonds in our community,” said United Way’s annual campaign chairman Mike Butler, as he spoke about the organization’s year-old Diamond Donor program. “We want CEO’s and supervisors looking for the diamonds in their companies. We want our employee campaign managers asking their coworkers. We even want people to ask if their own family members might be Diamond Donors.”
A “Diamond Donor” is anyone who has contributed any amount to any United Way for 25 years or more – not necessarily consecutively and not exclusive to one community.
“We’re really excited about moving this program forward and recognizing our loyal, long-term United Way donors,” said United Way board member Joe Decosimo. “Some people may have started giving back when it was the Community Chest. Others may have earned a red feather pin by collecting dimes in school. Most have donated for years through payroll deduction as they’ve moved from one company to another or one city to another.”
“Unfortunately, United Way doesn’t have records of all its donors or their giving histories that go back as far as 25 years, so we need these contributors to identify themselves,” he added. “We didn’t start computerizing until the mid eighties. In the early days, companies collected their employees’ money and just wrote one big check to United Way. We’re trying to go back and capture some of that history.”
United Way wants to connect with these loyal contributors, past and present, so they can be appropriately thanked and recognized. As it begins to collect and record their information, the organization plans to survey these long-term donors to find out what shape they want their involvement with the United Way to take.
United Way contributors can fill out a Diamond Donor form on their web site at www.uwchatt.org. You can get one by calling Brent Taylor, 423-752-0310, at United Way. If you’re giving at work to the 2007 campaign, just fill out the line underneath the signature box on the pledge form.
But United Way wants donors to do more than just acknowledge their decades of generosity. They also want these gracious givers to share stories about their personal experiences with the local organization, such as, but not limited to:
- why they first donated, when or even who asked them to give;
- if they worked on a United Way campaign at their company;
- if they ever visited a funded program to see their contributions in action; or
- if they ever discovered that their contributions to United Way helped a coworker, friend or family member.
“We want to amass a collection of personal stories from our Diamond Donors in their own words,” said Mr. Decosimo. “These are the timeless stories of individuals with a desire to help others – whether or not they thought of themselves in that way – that go back for decades. Their loyalty has enabled United Way of Greater Chattanooga to serve our community’s greatest needs since September 11, 1922. It’s our hope that these stories would inspire everyone in our community, especially our youth, to perform similar acts of charity.”
“Like donations, no story is too big or too ordinary,” said Director of Planned Giving Brent Taylor. “Loyal contributors who have consistently given any amount are important. Signing a pledge card every year may seem routine, but it’s the dedication and the perseverance that adds meaning and makes such a difference.” Eventually the United Way wants to publish a book with these stories. If that happens, not only would it chronicle a history of community volunteerism, but it would also champion these every day, simple acts that have created successful outcomes throughout the years.
United Way of Greater Chattanooga funds local programs that create opportunities for people to care for themselves and each other, making our community the best at helping people achieve their potential. Thanks to an endowment fund that covers all overhead and administrative expenses, all contributions (100 percent) go directly to services that help individuals and families in greater Chattanooga, north Georgia and northeast Alabama.
Call the United Way at 423-752-0300 for more information.
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