The Ownership Trap

Does your United Way own things it shouldn’t?

COVID

Back in 2020, at the dawn of the COVID crisis, many United Ways set-up COVID-related funds that people could donate to and then United Way would allocate the money. But did those United Ways need to be the ones that “owned” the local COVID fund? Would there have been another organization that could have “owned” the local COVID fund?

Yes. I know of many United Ways that realized there were other organizations in their community that could own the local COVID fund. The COVID fund still existed, but it was not owned by United Way. Just because United Way could have owned the COVID fund did not mean they needed to own the COVID fund.

MISSION CREEP

The existential ownership question for United Way is: “Does United Way need to own this program in order for it to exist?” I have a feeling some United Ways would argue “Of course we should own it, even if another organization could do so.” This type of thinking is commonly known as “mission creep.” One definition of mission creep is “the gradual, often unintentional expansion of an organization beyond its original, defined scope.”

I have noted that the United Ways that have the hardest time explaining what they do, often exhibit signs of mission creep. The commitment of staff time and financial resources to operate these programs grows over time, often taking away from what United Way had set out to do in the first place.

A PROFUSION OF PROGRAMS

One United Way we have been working with for a while operated 14 different programs when we started working with them. These programs addressed issues from high school graduation to breast cancer and everything else in between. If you looked at all 14 of their programs on a document or website, you would think this United Way existed as a home for orphaned programs, because that is exactly what happened. A program would exist in the community for years, then for a multitude of reasons, the organization running the program was no longer able to do so, and the program was adopted into the United Way family of programs. This United Way clearly felt the staff and financial resource challenges of operating these programs, almost all of which had little connection to their primary focus.

REHOMING

I use the word “rehoming” to describe what United Way needed to do with those adopted programs – find them a new home. I worked with one United Way that had inherited a Christmas basket program that became all consuming of their staff time and office space for about 6 weeks every year. As part of strategic planning, one of the outcomes was to rehome this program. It took them two years to do so, but they found a new home for the program, and it was a win-win. They no longer lost staff time and office space for 6 weeks a year, and the new owner of the program was every bit as successful, if not more successful, with the program moving forward. More good news – the United Way with 14 programs has rehomed over half of those programs – to the benefit of their United Way and the community.

DO WE NEED TO OWN THIS?

If your United Way has ballooned over the years from adopting programs, ask yourself this question for each program: “Does our United Way need to own this program in order for it to exist?”

I’ll bet you can rehome many programs which will allow you more staff time and financial resources to invest in achieving the primary focus of your United Way and make it easier for everyone to understand what it is your United Way does.