The board of Orange County United Way could be mistaken for one anywhere in Corporate America.
Members include executives from Boeing Co., Ingram Micro Inc., Automobile Club of Southern California, Angels Baseball LP and Irvine Company.
The big names give the nonprofit’s board a decidedly “corporate feel,” said Chief Executive Maria Chavez Wilcox, with a focus on financial reports and return on investments.
They also give Orange County United Way, a local affiliate of Alexandria, Va.-based United Way of America, a fundraising network most nonprofits would die for.
The executives on the board pitch United Way,a nonprofit that focuses on improving needy people’s education, incomes and health,to their companies, where many employees make contributions through their paychecks.
They also recruit other executives who end up doing the same thing at their companies.
|
|
||
|
Gardner, wife, Artyn: give more than $10,000 annually |
Among those with employees giving through paychecks are Irvine-based Allergan Inc., Newport Beach-based Pacific Life Insurance Co., Irvine’s Parker Aerospace, part of Cleveland-based Parker Hannifin Corp., and Irvine-based Edwards Lifesciences Corp.
“I wanted to get involved and now I’m way sucked in,” said Lisa Locklear, senior vice president and chief financial officer at Ingram Micro’s North America unit. “But I love it.”
Locklear’s also Orange County United Way’s treasurer.
She spends a lot of time on the group. Locklear recently took part in a fundraiser walk at Angel Stadium of Anaheim. That same week, she had United Way meetings on Tuesday and Wednesday, and then Friday she took part in a board leadership retreat.
A former boss introduced Locklear to Wilcox, Orange County United Way’s whirlwind chief executive.
Locklear said she was attracted to the idea of helping needy people become self-sufficient.
“It’s that teaching a man to fish idea,” she said.
Locklear and other big supporters give United Way advantages a lot of other nonprofits don’t have. But, like other nonprofits, United Way is feeling the sting of the recession.
Layoffs have pared United Way’s usually steady flow of workplace donations, which are down by 7% from a year earlier.
Overall giving is down by about 15% from a year ago, according to Wilcox. There have been cuts to United Way’s staff of 34 people and furloughs.
Meanwhile, demand for housing, school lunches, job training and other services are up.
The nonprofit has annual revenue of about $24 million.
Lost Donations
Wilcox can rattle off money sources that have disappeared far more quickly than what has come in lately.
“We just lost $85,000 yesterday,” she said, referring to the result of Macy’s Inc.’s restructuring.
United Way lost $700,000 in corporate sponsorships for several special events, she said.
When JPMorgan Chase & Co. swallowed Washington Mutual Inc., that wiped $300,000 off United Way’s budget.
“We’ll start a new relationship with Chase,” Wilcox said.
Other corporate donors have stepped up, such as United Parcel Service Inc. and Southern California Edison Co., part of Edison International, she said.
Other nonprofits have been hit harder, said Wilcox, who acknowledged that many of them don’t have the same network of heavy hitters that United Way does.
But any downturn at United Way has a ripple effect on other nonprofits, she said.
“It affects all those people benefiting from our efforts,” Wilcox said.
United Way raises money and then works with other groups to provide services to the needy. Wilcox calls the group the largest funder of human services here after the county of Orange.
It funds what it calls safety-net care,food, housing and other assistance for the needy,as well as long-term programs focused on educating kids and creating financial stability for families.
About $16 million of its yearly donations stays in OC, funding groups such as Laguna Woods-based South County Senior Services Inc., Costa Mesa-based Share Our Selves, Irvine-based Human Options Inc., Santa Ana’s Taller San Jose and Boys & Girls Club of Garden Grove.
This year, United Way is pushing a marketing campaign dubbed Live United with commercials, radio spots, posters, billboards and T-shirts. Wilcox, Locklear and other board members have been sporting the shirts.
United Way also started a couple of fundraising campaigns this year,its Walk United event at Angel Stadium and a Bridge the Gap campaign, which is trying to raise $1 million to meet immediate needs in the recession.
Allergan Foundation, the charitable arm of drug maker Allergan, recently gave $50,000 to the Bridge the Gap campaign.
United Way called on John Carpino, a new board member who is senior vice president of sales and marketing for Angels Baseball, to help start the 5-kilometer walk, a partnership with Angels Baseball Foundation.
“I unlock the door and they do a good job of kicking the door in,” Carpino said of United Way.
United Way’s goal was to raise $100,000 at the walk. It pulled in $85,000.
But “the visibility alone was worth it,” Wilcox said.
United Way plans to hold another walk next year.
Carpino joined the board about a year ago. It’s the only board he serves on.
Baseball is a hectic business with crazy hours, Carpino said. He also has three children.
“Time is so valuable,” he said. “What I didn’t want to do is just be a name. I wanted to make a difference.”
His neighbor Douglas McCombs, a partner at Grant Thorton LLP’s Irvine office who’s also on United Way’s board and is its former chair, introduced Carpino to Wilcox.
Max Gardner, president of Irvine Co.’s apartment unit, is one of United Way’s big backers, along with his wife, Artyn Gardner.
They’re members of the United Way’s Tocqueville Society, made up of members who give more than $10,000 annually.
“My wife is as involved, if not more so,” Max Gardner said.
She co-chairs the group’s Women’s Philanthropy Fund, which recently raised more than $250,000 for its annual fundraiser, a record for the event. About 650 people attended.
As a speaker, Artyn Gardner enlisted Liz McCartney, who was CNN’s 2008 “Hero of the Year.”
McCartney helped out in Hurricane Katrina’s aftermath and was so moved she quit her job and relocated from Washington, D.C., to New Orleans, where she’s helping to rebuild in St. Bernard Parish.
“A lot of people picked up a pen and wrote a check” after hearing her speak, Max Gardner said.
Wilcox
Wilcox is good at putting people to work.
She’s led the OC group for 13 years and has worked for United Way for 28 years.
On her watch, OC United Way has raised more than $250 million.
When she first came to OC, the group’s board had 86 members but just two chief executives, according to Wilcox.
She set out to recruit more executives. She makes it sound easy, though it was anything but, Wilcox said.
“I asked,” she said. “I said I was new in town and needed help.”
Wilcox started with a couple of recruits and it grew from there, she said.
“They got religion,” Wilcox said.
United Way now benefits from its “panache” and many executives believe it’s the board to be on, she said. There’s a lot of links among directors here and those on the boards of other United Way affiliates, according to Wilcox. Members also see each other on corporate boards, she said.
United Way’s corporate-style board helps it focus on accountability and measure what the group gets for the money it spends, Wilcox said.
She said she sometimes gets grilled by her executive directors.
“Things I think won’t take a long time can end up taking an hour,” she said.
