Impact the Triangle for Good…Join Us?

Posted on March 12, 2013 by Jennifer Bosk

This morning we announced our first ever Community Impact Plan…a list of goals and outcomes we plan to achieve, with agency partner help and your help, to impact our Triangle for good!

Early last year, volunteers and corporate, community and nonprofit agency partners worked with United Way to shape a focused Community Impact Plan with accountability for specific goals. Together we developed a new approach and new plan for our community based on:

Assessment of our communities’ needs and identification of the priorities to be addressed.
An open invitation to all Triangle nonprofits to apply for funding and undergo our rigorous certification process.
A successful 2012 campaign that raised $5.3 million of donor designated funds and $5.3 million of Community Impact Funds, the first increase in several years.
The allocation of Community Impact Funds to selected agency programs to achieve specific goals.

We are putting $1,889,676 towards Education/Youth Development programs in 2013 and some things we plan to achieve as a result include: Continue reading →

Spread the word to end the R word … again

Posted on October 25, 2012 by Edwin Jeffords

Several months ago, a United Way employee, Meg Buckingham, wrote an inspiring blog post about how insensitive the word “retard” is to those struggling with a mental handicap or challenge. The blog post was so pointed and timely, that the national organization behind the campaign to end the “r-word” featured the blog post on their facebook page. It was great exposure for a poignant message: Using derogatory words to describe a condition like Down Syndrome is just not acceptable.

How could you not agree with the abolishment of this word from our vernacular? After reading through the facebook page and the website of this campaign, I honestly thought that this was one topic most people could agree on. That is, until Monday night’s presidential debate. I consider myself a moderate conservative, “just to the right” of center. I enjoy political debates and discussions with my friends and foes. But what I heard from conservative author Ann Coulter was appalling. She tweeted during the debate the following:

She tries to insult the president by saying that he is a “retard.” Now, being a generally forgiving person, I assumed that she would quickly recant her statement and beg for public forgiveness for her “spur of the moment” tweet made during a highly contentious presidential debate. Quite the opposite happened. The evening following the debate, I saw her on Inside Edition, actually defending her comments.

I was speechless.

Today, I revisited the topic, and came across probably the perfect response to Ann Coulter’s insensitive remarks. It was made in an open letter format from John Franklin Stevens, a global messenger and an athlete from the Special Olympics. His letter to Ms. Coulter details how his condition does not make him less of a person or dumber than you or me. It just means that his brain processes information at a different speed. He also mentions how he had been bullied as a child and suffered from low-grade health care most of his life, yet he still treats each day “like a wonderful gift.”

Please read Mr. Stevens’ guest blog post on the Special Olympics blog, and see how he turned this negative and hurtful remark into a positive message and an inspiration for others.

United Way of the Greater Triangle works with several partner agencies who serve the mentally challenged, like Mr. Stevens. When this type of cruelty exists, someone has to stand up and say “no more.” I challenge each of you, even if you have done this before, to visit http://www.r-word.org/ and sign the online pledge to end the “r-word” from your daily life.

7 reasons to connect with nonprofits on facebook

Posted on May 15, 2012 by Edwin Jeffords

If you’re like the other 750 million or so people on facebook, then you probably have a handful of “fan pages” that you’ve “liked” over time. By liking one of these pages, you are telling facebook, in essence, that you want to hear a little bit more from the curator of that page, until otherwise opting out – or “unliking” the page.

Here at United Way of the Greater Triangle, we have a good following of steadily growing numbers on facebook, but it’s never enough. Our facebook page is the first place that we, and many other nonprofits, post breaking news, blog posts, photographs, event details, and much more. This post will give you 7 undeniable reasons to connect with any nonprofit you may be interested in on facebook.

Continue reading →

Pinwheels for Prevention!

Posted on April 26, 2012 by Laurie Williamson

Colorful playfully spiraling pinwheels make me happy! To me, they are a perfect symbol of childhood and spring – nurtured growth and change. April is Child Abuse Prevention Month and Pinwheels of Prevention have sprung up in gardens around the community, state and nation to raise awareness about this issue.

“The pinwheel represents Prevent Child Abuse America’s efforts to change the way our nation thinks about prevention, focusing on community activities and public policies that prioritize prevention right from the start to make sure child abuse and neglect never occur.” Continue reading →

An Open Letter to Politicians

Posted on March 22, 2012 by Carolyn Wiley

In case you hadn’t noticed, it’s voting season. It’s a bit different from duck season and rabbit season, but allow me the metaphor for a minute. Substitute Jo Citizen for the hunter, the politicians for the game, and our collective voice as the weapon. Voting season is about shouting at the top of our lungs and aiming our words at the politicians. We don’t want just any politician–we want one who will listen to our needs and the needs of the community. So, if you’re out there, listen up! Here’s a few things you might want to do.

Quit banning things that aren’t dangerous. There was a time when our governments worked against discriminatory practices. Laws were passed to protect our civil rights. Somehow this has changed to writing laws that prohibit behaviors and activities rather than protecting them. “If you don’t like it, ban it!” Well, besides being a waste of time and money these bans on behavior and activities are infringing on our civil rights and cutting off the voices of the American citizens who voted you into office. Case in point: citizens are banned from wearing costumes? What’s next, a bathroom ban?
Learn how much things cost. If you’re going to be setting budgets, cutting funding and advocating for specific programs, you should know what it costs to educate, feed, clothe and care for someone in your community. Perhaps if you knew these costs you would eagerly support programs that help parents with afterschool care and mentoring. Maybe if you knew what a gallon of milk cost you would increase the support for school lunch assistance programs and backpack buddies programs.
Learn about the internet. As Joshua Kopstein writes so well, you need to start listening and educating yourself about the world around you–especially the “series of tubes” we citizens use every day. This is the path forward, it’s not an option for you to know next to nothing about how it works or why. You are in your position to manage the interests of your constituency, and they need your help to protect their access to the online world. Educators are currently using the web in classrooms; the unemployed are surfing it to find jobs; and you are currently reading this blog on it (we hope). It’s important, so get learnin’.
Support programs that help people. Be an advocate whenever you can for small businesses and nonprofits that make it their business to help people. They are doing the work for our community. Support grant programs and public-private partnerships. Seek state and national funding for programs that help children, the elderly, the disabled, the battered and the sick. Fund programs that make a difference and show results.
Work to end poverty. The Census Bureau reported the number of Americans living below the poverty line was the highest level in 52 years. We need our leaders to fight against the growing inequality in this country. We can’t have leaders who don’t care about the poor. Occupy Wall Street protests should be a wake up call to all of us that we are a nation of extremes in which over 14% of our households face food insecurity.
Restore education funding. How are kids going to succeed when they have fewer resources, less one-on-one time with a teacher, no cultural enrichment experiences, and no after school care? These are things that cause many kids to drop out of school. Once they drop out a third to nearly half of them will end up on welfare or in jail. So here’s an idea–instead of cutting these programs how ’bout we expand the most succesful ones? Let’s actually work together to help children reach their full potential and exceed our expectations.

As Dr. Martin Luther King wrote, “There is no deficit in human resources; the deficit is in human will… The well-off and the secure have too often become indifferent and oblivious to the poverty and deprivation in their midst. The poor in our countries have been shut out of our minds, and driven from the mainstream of our societies, because we have allowed them to become invisible. Ultimately a great nation is a compassionate nation. No individual or nation can be great if it does not have a concern for ‘the least of these.’”

Let us live these words of compassion and strive to be a better nation. Please, help us become that great nation.