When your donors think of your United Way, what words come to mind? We frequently ask donors this question, and the hundreds of words donors use to describe United Way reaffirm the fact that most donors do not understand what your United Way does.

Why does your United Way hold workplace campaigns? At first, this will seem like an easy question to answer. But, I would ask you to think about it at a deeper level – beyond raising money or because United Ways have always held workplace campaigns.

The issue of designations can be controversial. While some United Ways promote designations as a way to encourage donors to give, others discourage designations by placing restrictions on which organizations can be designated to or by requiring a minimum designation amount.

To survive when Philanthropy Cloud is available to all nonprofits, United Ways will need to strengthen the products they have to sell. For many United Ways, this will be a significant challenge.

One of the questions we have consistently asked is: “If you did not give to United Way this past year, have you ever given to United Way?” We have found that the percentage of people who did not give to United Way this year but have given to United Way previously has increased over time.

We make our New Year’s resolutions with the intention to better ourselves. If we know that our resolutions are in our best interest, why are they so hard to keep?